Road traffic causes considerable external costs, like congestion, accidents and pollution. In many countries, including the Netherlands, large parts of these costs are not borne by the individual car users and are therefore not considered in their travel decisions.

Current charges such as a flat road tax are not efficient from an economic point of view. For this reason the Dutch government is introducing a new policy called ‘Anders betalen voor Mobiliteit’, (which stands for pay-as-you-drive) in which a pricing system is developed that is economically more efficient.

Politically, this is a very sensitive issue in the Netherlands and the Ministry of Transport has committed many studies into the different aspects of possible implementation. In 2005, an advisory committee, in which a broad range of stakeholders were represented, produced recommendations for implementation and the Ministry is currently pursuing preparations. ECORYS is actively participating in this work (as it has done in the past). Among the topics studied by ECORYS are:

• An inventory of useful alternative road pricing policies; 
• Impacts of road pricing on traffic volumes and freight transport; 
• Socio-economic impacts of road pricing; 
• Impacts of road pricing on specific markets like fuel and second-hand cars; 
• Business cases for several pay lanes (e.g. in a tunnel  in Amsterdam and on a motorway near Rotterdam).

Currently ECORYS is involved in the preparations of implementing road pricing by the Dutch government.

Client: Netherlands Ministry of Transport