Utrecht Centraal railway station


Utrecht Centraal is the transit hub that integrates two bicycle parkings, two bus stations, two tram stops and the central railway station for the city of Utrecht in the province of Utrecht, Netherlands.
Both the railway station and the bus station are the largest and busiest in the Netherlands. The bicycle parking on the east side is the largest in the world.
The railway station has sixteen platform tracks and 194,385 embarking and disembarking passengers per day, excluding transfers. Because of its central location in the Netherlands, Utrecht Centraal is the most important railway hub of the country with more than 1000 departures per day.

History

The first railway station at the site was opened on December 18, 1843, when the Nederlandsche Rhijnspoorweg-Maatschappij opened the first station on Utrecht territory.
In 1938, the station became the central station as the Maliebaanstation, on the other side of the city, was closed and the line from Hilversum was diverted into the central station. The station building of 1865 remained in place, though a fundamental renovation was done in 1936. Two years later, a fire burned down most of the building, which was subsequently rebuilt.
The station building was demolished in the 1970s to make way for Hoog Catharijne, then Europe's largest enclosed shopping mall, which opened on 17 December 1973. From that moment onwards, the station no longer had a real entrance; the passageways of the shopping mall just continued into the station. In 1989 the station hall was enlarged to increase capacity and to solve bottlenecks. In 1995, the station hall was again enlarged, with the construction of a new platform.
Between 2011 and 2016, the station underwent a major reconstruction as one of the NSP projects of the Dutch government and as part of a general reconstruction of the Utrecht station area. The station hall was replaced by a new, much larger hall, housing all modes of public transport. The new structure with its curved roof, was designed by Benthem Crouwel Architekten. The roof has three curves: a large one in the middle for the railway station and two smaller ones for the bus/tram stations on either side. New sheltering roofs were built for all platforms and the station was separated from the Hoog Catharijne shopping area.
A scale model of Utrecht Centraal is on display at Madurodam.

Tram and bus facilities

Light-rail service at Utrecht Centraal began in 1983 with the opening of the SUNIJ line. Its tram stop was originally located on the east side of the station. In 2009, when the nearby Moreelsepark tram terminal was closed, the Centraal stop was adapted to be the new terminal for the shortened SUNIJ line. At this time, the Centraal stop was given a minor makeover including provision for the OV-chipkaart and travel information displays.
In 2013, to accommodate construction work at the railway station, the SUNIJ line was further shortened. The Centraal stop on the east side of the station was closed and replaced by a stop at Jaarbeursplein on the west side of the railway station, becoming the temporary terminal of the SUNIJ line. The temporary Jaarbeursplein terminal has 3 tracks.
In July 2016, the bus terminal on the east side of the station was also relocated to the west side. This move made space available on the east side of the station for the construction of a new Centrumzijde bus and tram terminal as well as the construction of a new tram line, a new station square, a bicycle storage facility and the Moreelse bridge.
On 9 December 2019, the Centrumzijde bus and tram terminal opened at Utrecht Centraal. It is located under the main hall on the east side of the railway station, and riders can access it directly from the main hall. On 16 December 2019, the Uithoflijn started operation running from Centrumzijde to P+R Science Centre in the Uithof district.
In late 2020, the Uithoflijn will be connected with to the SUNIJ line using the existing tunnel under the railway tracks.

Redesign of the track layout

As the central hub of the Dutch railway network, disruptions at Utrecht Centraal can easily affect the rest of the country's railway network. 2-3 times per year, such disruptions led to a snowball effect, resulting in a total standstill of railway traffic in a wide area around Utrecht Centraal..
As part of a general effort to improve the reliability of the Dutch Railway network and because of the High-Frequency programme of the Dutch government, it was decided to remodel the track layout of the station for an investment of 270 million Euro.

Reasons for the redesign

The Ministry of Infrastructure described the reasons for the project as follows:

The problem of the old layout

The idea for the new track layout was based on the layout of Shinagawa station in Tokyo. Based on Shinagawa and other Japanese examples, a new design philosophy for track layout was developed within ProRail. It contains the following hierarchy:
  1. The main traffic flows are physically separated from each other and have their own dedicated tracks.
  2. The layout of these tracks is optimised for speed and headways, this is the main function of the stations.
  3. Additional switches are added for reaching the depots. In the case of Utrecht, there are three depots and each platform track has access to at least one depot.
  4. As a last step, switches are added where necessary to enable traffic management in case of disruptions. These switches have to fulfil a number of conditions:
  5. * The switches for disruption management cannot compromise the main function.
  6. * Switches are only added for a fixed number of disruption scenarios.
  7. * For each switch, a cost benefit analysis is made. Only switches with a positive result are included in the final design.

    The result

The new layout has around 60 switches and results in a doubling of capacity.
This capacity growth is due to the separating of the flows, the shorter headways and the extra platform. A part of this capacity growth is used for the implementation of the PHS High Frequency Programme, in which the basic frequency of several corridors is increased from 4 to 6 trains per hour. The station has capacity for a basic frequency of 8 trains per hour on all corridors, which makes it future proof for the foreseen growth up to 2040.

Train services

International, national and local train services call at the station, most notably the Intercity-Express trains to Frankfurt and Basel, domestic Intercity services to all parts of the Netherlands, and local services providing access to towns all over Utrecht province. Freight services also pass through the station, on the Amsterdam - Betuweroute - Ruhr corridor as well as the Antwerp - Northeast Germany corridor.
The following passenger services call at Utrecht Centraal :

Tracks 1-4: Sprinter (local) services North & Northeast

The train services are scheduled in such a way, that there is a basic frequency of an Intercity and a Sprinter every 15 minutes in every direction from Utrecht Centraal. The Intercity trains on the route Amsterdam - Utrecht - Eindhoven run every 10 minutes.
Some services run only during the peak hour, but on most lines the basic frequency is offered all day. On Sunday mornings and late evenings some services do not run, but even during those times, there is always an Intercity and a Sprinter at least every 30 minutes in every direction.

Bus services

Utrecht Centraal has two bus stations. One on the east side of the railway station and the other on the west side. The majority of the bus services in and around the city is operated by Qbuzz under the U-OV brand. and Arriva operate some of the regional bus services.

Busstation Centrumzijde

International bus services call at a separate bus stop near the station.

Tram services

Utrecht Centraal has two light rail terminals. The Jaarbeursplein terminal lies on the west side of the station, and handles trams on the SUNIJ line. The Centrumzijde terminal lies on the east side of the station, and handles trams on the Uithoflijn to the Uithof district.
On both sides of the station, there is a large three-floor bicycle parking. The parking on the east side is the world's largest bicycle parking. It opened fully on the 19th of August 2019 at the cost of an estimated €48 million and holds 12,500 bicycles.