“A company that has problems is not going to cry in the newspaper.” Minister of Mobility Lydia Peeters (Open Vld) reacted harshly when the opposition and coalition partner CD&V asked her on Wednesday about a weekend interview with director general of De Lijn Ann Schoubs in the Mediahuis newspapers. Schoubs – who rarely speaks out in the press – was very critical of the policy of the Flemish government. She called the old buses in the fleet “carcasses” and indicated that successive governments have invested too little in the transport company. She called that underfunding a “rotten strategy.”
“Stop complaining and complaining, create a change mentality and ensure more efficiency,” Peeters responded in parliament. “Straighten up and ensure that the contractual agreements are fulfilled.” A day later, her spokesperson also stood her ground: “De Lijn is of course free to communicate with the press. But we were indeed not happy with the words we read, because we always try to communicate positively with them. That is why the minister wanted to explain to parliament: this is not possible for us. We have such conversations at the table, not through the press.”
At De Lijn they no longer want to comment on the arguments. But anyone who delves into the newspaper archives will notice that things have been lopsided between Peeters and Schoubs for some time. In 2021, the latter, together with the then chairman of De Lijn, Marc Descheemaecker (N-VA), complained The morning address all the imbalances between policy expectations and the budget. Peeters then threatened to outsource more rides to private companies, because De Lijn was not switching to electric buses quickly enough.
According to Schoubs and Descheemaecker, Peeters was guilty of announcement policy and the structural budget required to truly electrify the fleet was not forthcoming. For Descheemaecker, now ex-chairman, little has changed in policy since then. “I do not think that this Flemish government is pursuing a strategy of rot, because that would mean that Minister Peeters has a strategy at all,” he says now.
It is true that successive Flemish governments have made savings on De Lijn. This started under Hilde Crevits (CD&V), Minister of Mobility from 2009 to 2014, and continued under Ben Weyts (N-VA). Under Peeters, the annual budget increased again, from 800 million to 1.2 billion euros.
Delete trips
That is a clear increase. But according to traveler organization TreinTramBus, this comes with important caveats. “She has not compensated for the previous savings,” says vice-chairman Stefan Stynen. On the contrary: the extra budgets usually come with additional requirements, such as the electrification of the buses. As a result, there is no money left for the much-needed renovation of old tram tracks – a project initiated by predecessor Weyts.
At the same time, wage and energy costs for De Lijn have only increased due to inflation. De Lijn would therefore like to increase ticket prices. But they also received a ‘no’ from Peeters. “That may seem like good news for travelers, but instead De Lijn may have to cancel trips to cover costs,” Stynen said.
Canceling trips is already happening. At the end of August, De Lijn announced that fewer buses and trams will run on 95 lines. The reason? Lack of staff. According to figures that Gazette of Antwerp collected, there are currently approximately 200 unfilled driver vacancies. The shortage leads to high work pressure, which also causes staff to regularly strike. The outdated buses – the “cadavers” that Schoubs refers to – and trams also regularly break down, paralyzing the timetable. “Normally fifteen years is the maximum age of a bus, but in Mechelen, among other places, there are buses that have at least twenty years on the clock,” says Stynen.
Are all these problems the result of too little budget? Or is it, as Peeters claims, also due to poor management by De Lijn? Mobility expert Dirk Lauwers (UGent/UAntwerp) is thinking of a combination of the two: “Although the latter is actually the result of the former. Because people felt that savings were being made, many people resigned. There is a high turnover of both management and technical staff, which means that expertise cannot be built up and retained.”
However, the Flemish government explicitly wants one modal shift – where people consciously switch from the car to sustainable means of transport such as bicycle or public transport. But according to Lauwers, this is being reversed due to the lack of resources: “Currently nine out of ten use the bus because they have no other option.” In the meantime, the government is investing in the car, he indicates. For example, she promised ten billion euros for the Oosterweel connection. Anyone who wants to buy an electric car can count on a premium of 5,000 euros.
Why don’t the resources for De Lijn follow suit? “If you have a poorly functioning public company, there are arguments for transferring it to the private sector,” says Lauwers. “The policy of recent years could therefore also be intended to make privatization obvious.”
