Delft Train Stations
The two train stations in Delft, Delft and Delft Zuid (south), service the residents of Delft by providing a sustainable transportation option alternative to cars for distances that are too far to walk or bike.
The train system connects Delft with big cities like Rotterdam (13 minutes away on the train), Den Haag (8 minutes by train), and Amsterdam (57 minutes). As as in picture of the display screen below, the trains run very frequently, often stopping at Delft main station.
The frequency is very high as you can see above, with 14 trains stopping at Delft in a 40 minute time period (12:19 to 12:59). These trains run all day long as per the schedule below:
The users of this train system use it for getting quickly from place to place for a numerous amount of reasons, everything from commuting daily to work, to running errands and doing shopping, and to traveling for vacations/pleasure. There are two types of trains that service the Delft stations, the Intercity and the Sprinter. The Intercity are the faster, regional trains that make less stops, while the Sprinters are the slower, local trains which make a lot more stops. The way in which ticketing works for the trains is that at the stations there are check in and check out gates at which you tap in and tap out with your OV chip card. One thing I noticed at Delft central is that they have the chip readers in two locations, one by the stairs going down and the other by the underground bike parking, making it easy for cyclists to check in and out. What I noticed at Delft Zuid was that they only had the card reader right at the platform and no gates, this is probably because Delft Zuid is a smaller station.
So how do the train users get to and from the train stations? Through observing the mode split over a time period, it was evident that the main mode of getting to and from the stations is through the use of bicycles. At Delft station, there are 7500 bicycle parking places and at Delft Zuid, there are 1500 parking places as shown in the pictures below:
According to the assignment four description, “bikes are used not only on the home end of a rail trip (bike is access mode for 40% of rail trips at the home end) but also at the destination end (12% and growing) as people pick up a bike they’ve stored overnight at the station to get to a workplace that’s 1 or 2 miles away. Many people commute with 2 bikes and a train in between.”
When I was riding my bike around Delft central station, I noticed that there was construction happening around the station. Also, when I was riding the train from Delft to Delft Zuid, I noticed that more tracks were being installed parallel to the two existing tracks. I believe this is because they are trying to separate the slower and faster trains as well as separate the trains that do not stop at Delft, but just zoom through. In addition, there are plans for the area around the Delft station, including more office and residential units. This is smart, as having a higher density near the train station will encourage people to use it more often and will make commuting so much easier. Also, in terms of constructing offices near the train station, it makes it easy for employees who live in a different town to commute straight to work via the train. Below are some of the pictures I took of the construction:
