Up to 40 people will be summoned to answer questions from the five members of parliament sitting on the committee. Those summoned are expected to include Dutch ministers of transport and infrastructure since the mid-1990s, including the former minister of transport, Mrs Tineke Netelenbos, and former finance minister Mr Gerrit Zalm. Senior managers from Netherlands Railways (NS) and Belgian National Railways (SNCB) involved in the Fyra project will also be called along with representatives from the V250 train supplier AnsaldoBreda.
The main thrust of the enquiry is to establish why the planned services on the HSL South high-speed line in the Netherlands failed. In particular the committee wants to investigate:
- the tendering process for the HSL-South high-speed services
- what role the government played as transport authority in granting the concession for the high-speed operation, and as a shareholder of NS
- the tendering process for the high-speed trains and the decision to award the contract to AnsaldoBreda
- the roles played by the various parties and their involvement in the design and manufacture of the trains
- who was involved in authorising the V250 Fyra trains for operation on the network, and how they performed their roles
- how the decision to withdraw the V250 trains was taken, and
- whether the substitute train services are an acceptable alternative to the intended Fyra high-speed services using the now-withdrawn V250 trains.
