What makes this even more ineffective is that in .NL most people don't pay for their commute. Employers typically cover that. So if my train to work goes up by 25%, I don't care, I'm not paying. It's not going to make me not travel to work.
If your problem is overcrowding. Run more trains. I'm not seeing any announcements about how they are increasing capacity on the network.
Oh and maybe think about a better design than the VIRM. The dwell time on it is horrendous.
@berkes is there anywhere a list of all the works happening?
@quixoticgeek also, note that ProRail doesn't operate on a free market. They are owned by, and funded by, the Dutch Government¹
They are also the ones who decide the timetables and hence the frequency².
The capacity, therefore, is directly and indirectly managed by the democratic elected government: the Dutch People. And not, as many presume, by market capitalism.
¹ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProRail#Funding
² https://www.prorail.nl/over-ons/wat-doet-prorail/capaciteitsverdeling
@quixoticgeek train tracks are full, though.
E.g. my cities' station (Nijmegen) simply cannot handle more trains without the tracks layout getting an overhaul. This is work in progress, but a giant, multi-year task.
Only once that's done, can the frequency of trains to north go up. Those are the trains that go via Utrecht. So, many trains from Utrecht cannot up the frequency: Nijmegen is a bottleneck for a large part of NL. There are many such bottlenecks. All being worked on already.