In 2023, SNCB was insufficiently on time, canceled too many trains and accumulated too many minutes of delay. As a result of this poor report, the railway company is subject to a “penalty” of 416,666 euros by the State.
These inglorious notes are compiled in the report drawn up as part of the public service contract concluded with the State. For the first time, financial consequences are linked to it. If the SNCB does better than what was agreed with the authorities, it can claim a bonus, but otherwise, it is a penalty that it obtains. In either case, it is a maximum of five million euros.
The 2023 bulletin established by the FPS Mobility and Transport reveals that SNCB performed well in nine “branches” (indicators) in relation to what was provided for in the contract. Good marks are thus obtained with regard to customer satisfaction, parking spaces around stations, CO2 footprint or connections. With regard to two indicators, SNCB is doing even better than what is asked of it: providing information to passengers in the event of disruptions to rail traffic and the energy consumption of electric towing vehicles.
Conversely, the railway company is doing worse than expected in three respects: train cancellations, punctuality (evaluated at 87.5%, when it should have been 89.1%) and the number of minutes late.
Dimitri Temmerman, spokesperson for SNCB, confirmed the penalty and added that the company does everything possible in 2024. This seems to be the case so far when it comes to punctuality. At the end of September, it was 89.6% (in September 2023, it was only 88.3%). The public service contract stipulates that this figure must be between 89% and 91%.
SNCB further underlined, in a press release, that the five performance indicators which are not linked to a financial incentive have, for their part, recorded results in accordance with, or even superior in certain cases, to the contractually fixed quality thresholds (cleaning , availability of vending machines, rehabilitation of access equipment to platforms and stations) and planned trajectories (equipment of the rolling stock fleet with ETCS and planned volume of trains.km).
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