2024
THE QUESTION
Metropolitan Region Rotterdam The Hague (Metropoolregio Rotterdam Den Haag: MRDH) and Amsterdam regional transport authority (Vervoerregio Amsterdam: VRA) receive the Broad goal-oriented grant Traffic and Transport (Brede Doeluitkering Verkeer en Vervoer: BDU) from the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (I&W) every year to maintain and improve accessibility in their regions. They use BDU primarily for their role as client for public transport and for investing in, managing and maintaining infrastructure. The transport authorities have concluded for some time that the BDU is inadequate to sufficiently realize their accessibility objectives. That is why they asked Hypercube to map out the problem factually, both quantitatively and qualitatively, and to propose possible solutions.
HYPERCUBE’S WORK
We have delved into the historical developments and agreements made from the start of the BDU in 2005, as well as into the future plans of the Transport Regions. To this end, we have spoken with MRDH and VRA and various civil servants from the Ministry of I&W, studied numerical material with regard to (to be) receiving BDU and expenditures and finally consulted existing research and public sources.
RESULT
The research report offers a thorough analysis of the current situation. It shows that the main problems arise from the fact that the BDU agreements do not contain any real growth and from an inappropriate indexation method of the BDU. The analysis also results in a number of concrete recommendations to bring the spending space for the transport authorities into balance with the task they are faced with. It thus serves as a basis for renewed discussions with the government.