{"id":171926,"date":"2024-09-30T15:46:58","date_gmt":"2024-09-30T13:46:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=171926"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:27:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:27:29","slug":"public-transport-fines-duo-will-only-cancel-your-public-transport-card-after-a-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2024\/09\/30\/public-transport-fines-duo-will-only-cancel-your-public-transport-card-after-a-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Public transport fines: DUO will only cancel your public transport card after a month"},"content":{"rendered":"

Students will probably keep paying millions of euros of public transport fines, even though it will be technically possible to automatically cancel expired public transport cards. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy that the minister is sticking to this system.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWynand van Poortvliet (Unsplash)<\/span>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

No longer entitled to your student public transport card? You have to delete the \u2018student travel product\u2019 from your chip card yourself, at one of those machines at a station or in a shop. Whoever accidentally continues to travel with it, will get hefty fines.<\/p>\n

Last year, students paid over six million euros in public transport fines between them. At one time, this amount was a lot higher, the record being 52 million euros in 2014. After many news reports<\/a> and a lot of pressure from the House of Representatives, the system has been improved (see box), but is still not ideal.<\/p>\n

Pretty much everyone wants the student public transport card to be cancelled automatically once students are no longer entitled to it, for example when they\u2019ve graduated or are taking too long to complete their studies. This is said to only become possible once a new payment system is introduced in public transport.<\/p>\n\t

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Some improvements to prevent public transport fines<\/strong><\/p>\n

In recent years, the current system has been improved. For instance, you won\u2019t be fined anymore if you haven\u2019t used the card at all. In the past, you would get a fine anyway. This modification drastically reduced the number of fines.<\/p>\n

DUO also gives clearer \u2013 but not quicker \u2013 warnings about these fines than it used to. In the old days, students would receive an email saying a message was waiting for them in \u2018Mijn DUO\u2019. As this didn\u2019t sound too urgent, students didn\u2019t always realise they were getting fines.<\/p>\n

These days, expired public transport cards also end up on a \u2018blacklist\u2019 after a while, so you can\u2019t use them to check in anymore. Before, this only happened after a year. This can\u2019t automatically be done for all cards, because the capacity of the blacklist is limited.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

\u201cMy wish as well\u201d <\/h2>

In 2022, then Minister of Education Robbert Dijkgraaf said the following about automatic cancellation: \u201cIt\u2019s my wish as well. It\u2019s really clear this is what we have to do. However, this isn\u2019t as easy as it sounds in the current public transport payment system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dijkgraaf was happy students were getting fewer fines than before. \u201cWe expect we\u2019ll be able to reduce this much further, for one thing because a new public transport payment system will be introduced.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics can\u2019t wait for that new payment system to get here. In 2017, the National Ombudsman stated<\/a> the following: \u201cThe current system, where the student travel product has to be cancelled by (former) students themselves<\/em> once they are no longer entitled to it, is illogical and a source of debt in its own right.\u201d<\/p>\n

The House of Representatives also continued to find it strange. The Education Executive Agency (DUO) knows for every student when their right to student financing and a student public transport card expires. So why wouldn\u2019t you be able to cancel it automatically? The government had to discuss this with the parties involved, a motion submitted by VVD and CDA at the end of 2016 read. The entire House of Representatives, from left to right, supported this.<\/p>\n

No intention<\/h2>

And yet, it won\u2019t happen anytime soon. First and foremost, because there\u2019s a delay: the new payment system for public transport (OVpay) has to start looking for a new bank, now that the collaboration with Bunq has been discontinued<\/a>. This could take months, says a spokesperson.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more: even in the new system, the travel rights won\u2019t automatically be cancelled once the student is no longer entitled to them.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not OVpay\u2019s fault. \u201cSomeone has to tell us that the travel rights need to be taken off the card\u201d, says a spokesperson. \u201cAfter all, we don\u2019t have that information. It doesn\u2019t matter to us who does it: the students themselves or DUO.\u201d<\/p>\n

After 30 days<\/h2>

So the problem is with DUO, or actually with the ministry that thinks up the rules. It will become easier to cancel your travel rights \u2013 you\u2019ll simply be able to do it from your computer and you won\u2019t have to go to a machine anymore \u2013 but it still won\u2019t be automatic.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the student travel product will be \u2018cancelled with a delay\u2019in the future, a DUO spokesperson confirms. \u201cOnce the travel rights have expired, DUO will communicate this to the public transport companies after 30 days. This is the case both with the public transport chip card and with OVpay. That\u2019s the current policy, regardless of the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

And in those first thirty days, fines are already imposed, if (former) students still use the card. This costs 89.50 euros per half month, or 179 euros for that one month a student mistakenly checks in with the card.<\/p>\n

Reason<\/h2>

Why that term won\u2019t be modified anytime soon? In response to parliamentary questions by GroenLinks-PvdA, then Minister Dijkgraaf said last April that this modification would sometimes be to the disadvantage of students.<\/p>\n

Sometimes students still have travel rights, but this is not correctly registered in DUO\u2019s administration. This happens, for instance, when they switch degree programmes or when they progress from vocational to higher professional education. This would mean they\u2019d suddenly not be able to check in anymore.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s why DUO doesn\u2019t cancel the travel product right away. As Dijkgraaf explained: \u201cThis prevents a student from not being able to use their travel product anymore in a situation where it simply concerns a transition period between two programmes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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