If you travel by train you will undoubtedly often find yourself in a crowded compartment, while there appears to be room in the back. With the new seat finder, the NS Travel Planner app will help you find a seat in advance. The function is being tested from today.
This is the NS Travel Planner seat finder
When you are on a crowded train, it often turns out that there is still a seat on the other side of the train, if you search carefully. With the so-called ‘seat finder’ of the NS Travel Planner app, you can now easily check where you can still sit on the train.
The app indicates how busy it is in the different parts of a train with colored lines. With green there is still enough space, orange indicates that the seating areas are limited and with a red line the train section is completely full.
To this end, the NS app uses various sensors in the train, which measure the weight per carriage. Based on the weight, the application then determines how many travelers are present in a specific train section. In the future, the system will be used to ‘measure’ how many travelers are present.
Important to know: the seat finder is currently being tested on the Arnhem-Nijmegen-Den Bosch route, where, according to the Dutch Railways, many travelers are at one side of the train, while there is often still space further away. Later, the seat finder should be rolled out nationwide. If you happen to travel on this route, you will come across the new feature when you plan a journey and tap the trainset for more information.
Download the NS Travel Planner
As mentioned, testing the feature is only possible on the Arnhem-Nijmegen-Den Bosch route. Make sure you have the latest version of the NS Travel Planner app, which you can download via the link below.