41-47 Bovy Feature

41 REASONS FOR DEMAND MANAGEMENT IN THE NETHERLANDS Despite the already overcrowded roads, especially in and around the Dutch conurbation, a further growth in the use of cars is expected in the near and farther future. Demographic and economic forces are the main factors for this development. There is widespread consensus, not only in The Netherlands, that building roads is not the right answer to the increasing demand for car travel. First and above all, slowing the growth pattern of car use by influencing the demand for travel in general and the demand for car travel in particular should be encouraged. Transportation demand management deals with the development and application of means aimed at shifting travel demand towards acceptable and desirable levels and patterns. In this feature the author will deal with innovative approaches in demand management as are currently applied and are being developed in The Netherlands. Since pricing is seen as a very promising and innovative instrument in this respect, already proven for the case of managing scarce inner urban parking space, the feature will focus heavily on the envisaged congestion-pricing plan in The Netherlands. This plan is meant as an important instrument in shifting the demand for car use, especially in the peaks, to other periods, to other modes and partly to other destinations. The feature will first briefly summarize the objectives of demand management, the available instruments to pursue these and examples of innovative demand-management approaches applied in The Netherlands. Then, a discussion will be presented of different objectives that are at stake for road pricing, with examples from a number of European countries. The major part of the feature deals with the envisaged Dutch congestion-pricing approach: its system setup, technicalities and estimated impacts on travel demand. The feature closes with a critique on the implementation approach followed so far.