Dutch ERTMS rollout risks missing 2050 target by decades
NETHERLANDS: The Dutch ERTMS Programme Directorate has told parliament the national rollout will not complete until 2060–2070, and proposes a new approach to accelerate.
The assessment came in a report published 9 April, submitted to the Dutch parliament alongside the programme’s 24th progress report.
The Programme Directorate warns that ageing legacy systems are deteriorating while ERTMS installation continues at a rate that leaves the Netherlands one to two decades behind its own 2050 target.
New approach proposed to break the impasse
The report is framed as an exploratory analysis — a mapping of urgency and options for acceleration, not a decision on a new model.
The directorate’s core finding is that the current sequential approach, rolling out ERTMS one section at a time, cannot deliver at national scale within any politically viable timeframe.
The legacy train protection system ATB remains operational, but its infrastructure is ageing and moving toward end of life.
A transition that extends to 2060–2070 would create a prolonged window in which the Netherlands operates a system with diminishing supplier support and replacement parts.
Northern Lines the only active front
Physical installation is currently underway on just one front: the Northern Lines project in Friesland, where ProRail began laying fibre-optic cable between Harlingen and Leeuwarden in January 2026.
The Leeuwarden–Harlingen Haven section serves as the national testbed for the latest ETCS version, with axle counters and balises to follow later this year.
The report proposes a parallel rollout approach to close the gap between that single active deployment and the scale of a national programme.
EU pressure building
The Programme Directorate’s assessment lands seven weeks after the European ERTMS Coordinator published the third ERTMS Work Plan on 23 February, which found deployment across member states uneven and at risk of missing TEN-T Regulation targets.
ETCS is installed on approximately 10% of the TEN-T core network and on around 19% of the EU railway fleet, the work plan noted.
The ERA ERTMS 2026 Conference in Valenciennes on 21–23 April will bring together infrastructure managers, operators and policymakers to address deployment progress across Europe.