It’s all gone now, but that first snowfall a couple weeks ago was magical! Emerging from the Sports Centre after lunch on a seeming normal Monday afternoon, suddenly the air was full of snow flakes! The Dutch might call it just a sneeuwvlaag or flurry, for all that was on the ground were tiny flakes that quickly turned to puddles.
But for a person from the tropics, that was snow, just the way it should be! It was quite different to seeing it on television or reading about it in a book, and it was absolutely amazing. Alas, the snow is gone now, but let’s keep our fingers crossed for some more before winter ends. Who knows, perhaps one day I’ll even achieve my dream of snowboarding on the library’s roof!
“The press will certainly suggest so in the ensuing discussion,” says Professor Bert van Wee. As an expert in transport policy and logistics at the faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, he has been involved in research on road pricing for more than 20 years. But he doesn’t agree that all the money is wasted. “We have developed much knowledge, which can be used for the next time. There is also a large spin-off to other countries. And I know some companies – which I cannot name – that are actively acquiring projects there based on knowledge they have developed in the Netherlands.
“When it was first thought of in 1988, the idea of road pricing was revolutionary. Since then it has moved on and off the political agenda, but in various countries it has been picked up and been brought into practice.” So road pricing seems the perfect illustration of the failure of Dutch innovation: we do invent, but we cannot implement.
Prof. Van Wee’s colleague, Dr Michiel Bliemer, from the faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, offers some examples to illustrate the interest from abroad. Singapore has a working dynamic pricing system (with tariffs varying according to the time of day), the United States introduced pricing on various busy routes, Sweden taxes cars to drive into Stockholm, and London has its own pricing system. According to Dr Bliemer, dynamic pricing has proven to be an effective means of reducing traffic congestion. “Constructing roads is very expensive, so working your way out of congestion by road building is unaffordable. Road pricing has proven to work and it’s a fair system. People who use the roads at busy times pay more, while those who leave earlier or later or who take the train pay less. It spreads the traffic more evenly and optimises the use of the infrastructure.”
But if it’s such a good idea, why did it get cancelled in the Netherlands? The two governing parties, the liberal VVD and the Christian-democratic CDA, supported the road-pricing plan put forward by Eurlings, the previous Dutch Minister for Transport, but they changed their position shortly before the elections. “Probably out of electoral motives,” says Prof. Van Wee. “It’s not the first time the government seems to be driven primarily by popular emotions instead of rational considerations. Take for example the raising of the speed limit to 130 kilometres per hour. The time gained does not outweigh the extra risks, the higher fuel consumption and more environmental damage.”
Joint research into road pricing over the last 20 years conducted by TU Delft, Utrecht University, VU University Amsterdam (economics) and the University of Groningen (psychology) has shown that from the point of view of economics and traffic management, dynamic road pricing works and is efficient. The weakest links, according to Dr Bliemer, are the psychological acceptance and the policy.
“In Sweden there was lots of resistance, but the government introduced the road-pricing for Stockholm as a pilot. Once people saw that the usual traffic jams disappeared, they were won over.”
Prof. van Wee adds: “I’d be most surprised if road pricing would stay off the agenda for the next twenty years.”
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