[3] Because of its central location in the Netherlands, Utrecht Centraal is the most important railway hub of the country with more than 1,000 departures per day.

The station building was demolished in the 1970s to make way for Hoog Catharijne, then Europe's largest enclosed shopping mall, which opened on 17 December 1973.

In 1989 the station hall was enlarged (tripling the original size) to increase capacity and to solve bottlenecks.

New sheltering roofs were built for all platforms and the station was separated from the Hoog Catharijne shopping area.

[9] Its tram stop (named Utrecht Centraal) was originally located on the east side of the station.

At this time, the Centraal stop was given a minor makeover including provision for the OV-chipkaart and travel information displays.

This move made space available on the east side of the station for the construction of a new Centrumzijde (downtown side) bus and tram terminal as well as the construction of a new tram line (Uithoflijn), a new station square (Stationsplein), a bicycle storage facility and the Moreelse bridge.

[15] Passengers who wanted to transfer between the SUNIJ and Uithof lines had to walk 500 metres (1,600 ft) between the Jaarbeursplein and Centrumzide stops.

The train services are scheduled in such a way, that there is a basic frequency of an Intercity and a Sprinter every 15 minutes in every direction from Utrecht Centraal.

Some services run only during the peak hour, but on most lines the basic frequency is offered all day.

2–3 times per year, such disruptions led to a snowball effect, resulting in a total standstill of railway traffic in a wide area around Utrecht Centraal.

Based on Shinagawa and other Japanese examples,[26] a new design philosophy for track layout was developed within ProRail.

This capacity growth is due to the separating of the flows, the shorter headways and the extra platform.

The station has capacity for a basic frequency of 8 trains per hour on all corridors, which makes it future proof for the foreseen growth up to 2040.