Last year, several pressure records were broken on the Dutch roads. This year is a completely different story because of the corona crisis. We may notice the declining traffic on the road for years to come, according to calculations by the Knowledge Institute for Mobility Policy.
Now that as much as possible stays at home, working from home and limiting social contacts is the motto, there is of course much less happening on Dutch roads. This is also evident from the figures. KiM comes with the initial findings. Between March 3 and March 31, when the measures against corona were rolled out, traffic intensity on the main roads decreased by as much as 39 percent. Freight traffic obviously notices less, but also declined in that period: 7 to 8 percent.
The main question is what it looks like for the future. KiM emphasizes that the forecasts, calculated on the basis of figures from the CPB, are still quite uncertain. It obviously depends on the further course of the crisis, the severity of the measures to prevent the spread of the virus and the economic consequences. If we have to live with the current restrictions for a total of three months, KiM (compared to 2019) expects 10 percent less traffic over the whole of 2020. If it takes six months, it will drop by 20 percent. In the highly unlikely scenario that we are facing the current limitations for a year, we will have a third less traffic over the whole of 2020 than in 2019.
How it will look on Dutch roads in the coming years is of course also related to how long we have been in the current situation and what the economic consequences are. In the worst case scenario, with a year of living with the current measures and a subsequent deep recession, freight traffic could be affected by a 5 percent contraction until 2025. According to KiM, the total traffic supply will only return to the same level as last year in 2025. Of course it may also be the case that, even if this is no longer strictly necessary, many more people will continue to work from home in the future. That does of course also a hefty penny in the bag.