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For the second time in two years, the Dutch government has drawn up
plans to price cars off the roads to ease the Netherlands’ growing problems
of congestion and air pollution. The first attempt to drive up the cost
of travelling by road brought down the government. If this latest plan works
it will provide a blueprint for transport policy throughout Europe.

The government plans to spend about 6 billion Pounds on a scheme to
improve public transport and provide new rail and canal links for passengers
and freight. The links will be complemented by urban rail networks to improve
connections between national and regional train and bus services. Transport
engineers in the Hague, for example, are developing a new rapid rail system,
called Randstad Rail, which uses a sophisticated locomotive to improve speed,
safety, comfort and reliability. Money raised from tolls on roads will help
to pay for the scheme.

Despite the government’s efforts to reduce the number of cars on the
roads, the number of new private car registrations has increased from 99,000
in 1989 to 140,000 last year. This raises the number of cars in the Netherlands
to 5.54 million. In the next 20 years, the use of cars is estimated to increase
by 70 per cent.

Two years ago, the Dutch Prime Minister, Ruud Lubbers, put forward a
plan to reduce the number of cars on the road to fewer than 4 million. This
was to be achieved by increasing the cost of buying and running cars by
about 50 per cent. The opposition’s rejection of the proposal led to the
collapse of the coalition government.

In the new plan to clear the roads for more efficient public transport,
the Dutch transport minister, Hanja Maij-Weggen, skirts the issue of increasing
the direct costs of owning a car. Instead, she suggests introducing devices
such as tolls for driving in specific, badly congested areas or for driving
at particular times, such as rush hours.

Predictably, Dutch road users have not welcomed Maij-Weggen’s proposals.
The vehicle owners’ pressure group Stichting Weg has branded the plans ‘impractical,
unreasonable and inequitable’.

Dutch haulage companies favour the introduction of tolls rather than
rush-hour levies. ‘Tolls are a daily expense which may deter motorists more
than a rush-hour permit which is a one-off expense,’ says Rob Lenterman,
of Nedlloyd, a multinational freight company based in Rotterdam. Less congested
roads, he says, would increase his company’s profits.