Graduation at faculty: Civil Engineering and Geosciences (CITG), Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (3mE), Technology, Policy and Management (TPM). This thesis deals with real-world plannings problems of timetable design. Improving the timetable design methodology results in a more reliable timetable and a higher quality for passengers. This research first identified the Dutch timetable design process. Afterwards the weaknesses of the Dutch timetable design methodology is identified. These identifications are made by conducting interviews within NS & ProRail. In the third section a case study is conducted. The Dutch 2014 timetable is simulated and compared with a conflict-free timetable which was constructed using microscopic methods (planning in seconds instead of minutes and headways calculated by blocking times instead of plan norms). The simulations resulted in 37% less conflicts and a decrease of 8% delay. Further research is recommended to validate the conclusions in this paper and to investigate the practical usability of a microscopic methodology in an actual design process.