UPDATE ON THE RAILWAY STRIKE

Unfortunately, travel conditions on Tuesday or Wednesday when traveling to Utrecht are severely affected by a national railway strike. Although this affects trains in different regions of the Netherlands each day, with Utrecht being the main railway hub in the country, train connections to and from Utrecht are expected to be disrupted on both days.

There are *no* trains going to Utrecht on Tuesday. There are trains between Schiphol Airport and Amsterdam CS, but that may be of limited use when traveling to Utrecht. The conditions for Wednesday are still unclear; see www.ns.nl/en for more information about the strike.

The travel planning service https://9292.nl/ seems to provide some options to Utrecht by bus. Some of these connections are scheduled to last a bit more than one hour others up to two hours. Please consider using this travel planner.

Again, another option is to take a cab or Uber. Schiphol Airport provides some useful pointers on their website. This is certainly not the cheapest option and you might want to share the ride with other participants. We therefore set up an online document in which you can enter your travel information so that other can contact you (and you can contact other participants) in case you look for someone to share the ride (Thanks to Martin Aranguren for this suggestion!). The link has been shared by e-mail to all participants.

Good luck with your journey, stay safe, and send us an e-mail if you get stuck.

General travel information

Utrecht is located in the center of the Netherlands and is easily reached by public transport. Train station Utrecht Central Station is the main domestic railway hub of the country with direct rail services to most of the major Dutch cities. There are also some international trains serving Utrecht. We recommend using the general public transport route planner 9292 for planning your travel.

There are regular trains from Amsterdam Schiphol airport to Utrecht. You can buy train tickets at the yellow ticket machines at the airport (close to the entrance to the train station). There are English instructions available, and tickets can be paid using coins or debit card. More information about the Dutch railways (NS) and train schedules can be found here.

Although everything is close by in Utrecht, you may want to take a bus if your accommodation is located further from the city center. For information about local public transport in Utrecht, click here. Please note that it is not possible to buy tickets in the bus with cash. Instead, you can pay with debit card.

If you expect to travel with public transport a lot during the conference, it may be worthwhile to buy an OV-chipcard. This card is valid in public transport (including all national trains and busses) in the entire country. The recommended retail price is €8,00 and you can load your OV-chipcard with credit at a reloading device, which can be found at railway stations and affiliated resellers. The card is valid for four years, so you can also use it during future visits of the Netherlands. Note that you can still travel without an OV-chipcard, but travel costs may be more expensive.

With Utrecht Being named one of the most cycle-friendly cities in the world, we can highly recommend cycling as a mode of transport. So if you would like to experience Utrecht as a local, you may want to ask your hotel or host whether they can provide a bike for you during the conference. If not, you can easily rent a bike at Laag Catharijne or try bike-sharing with Tier or Go About.