HOLLAND: Toll Buy-in for Rotterdam’s A16/A20

The Dutch transport ministry and the Rotterdam region are jointly sponsoring toll buy-in for motorists in a hurry on a congested stretch of the A16/A20 motorway system which skirts the central city area. The mwys provide major truck routes to the docks. In the initial phase a limited number of transponders would be issued to motorists to allow them to pay to make use of spare capacity in lanes presently reserved for trucks and buses. This will probably be the first application of the toll express lane concept outside California and Texas.

In the first phase there will be a monthly fee for car drivers to buy the right to enter the truck/bus lane, and in the second phase there will be per-trip tolls. The project will first be limited to a 3.2km (2mi) stretch of motorway. Maximum flows at present are in the range 500 to 600 vehs/hr and the transport ministry thinks it can safely add about 400 cars.

As in toll buy-in arrangements in the US the project will be designed to limit cars to the number which will make fuller use of the reserved lanes while not over-filling them. The trucker lobby has raised no objection to the scheme.

The motorway got the special truck/bus lanes during a widening earlier in the decade. They have helped the image of Rotterdam as friendly to commerce, Harry van der Pol of the transport ministry, says.

The toll buy-in project will need special legislation because there is presently no provision for tolls on public roads in Holland.

Critics of the ambitious ring toll (rekeningrijden) proposal (see TRnl#38 Apr 99 p9) have suggested toll express lanes on major Dutch motorways as an alternative, stressing that it would provide motorists with a choice. (Contact: Harry van der Pol, transport ministry h.vdpol@dzh.rws.minvenw.nl)

UPDATE: The coalition government proposing the these pricing measures fell May 18 and everything is on hold until after elections and formation of a new government this summer.

CORRECTIONS: to last report on Dutch cordon pricing

• the name for the 6m pop area encompassing Rotterdam, Haag, Utretch and Amsterdam was misspelled. It is Randstad

• the number of toll points for the Randstad ring proposed is approx 70 – 20 on the motorways and 50 on arterials, not 120 as we reported