Battle for urban public transport in the Netherlands

| 23.11.2011

The Dutch public transport market is changing rapidly. As we reported on July 7th this year, currently - with some delay - the bus concessions of Rotterdam and The Hague are on the market. In early 2012, public transport operators are asked to propose an interesting offer, after which in the end of 2012 the winning operators of these two bus concessions will get the exclusive rights to run the public busses for a period of several years. Although some experts believe that the procurements by Rotterdam City Region and Haaglanden City Region are written in such a way so that the current operators RET and HTM (former municipal transport companies that are still having a monopoly position) make the best chance, most experts expect the most fair competition on a level playing field. It will be interesting especially in the second half of this decade if both the tram and the metro networks (of Rotterdam) come to the market.

In Amsterdam, the Amsterdam City Region will bring all public transport in one Go to the market. A large multimodal concession (metro, tram and bus) will be tendered in the next years where the concession will probably start in 2015. Here, the former municipal transport company GVB will almost certainly disappear, something that will probably not be grieved by the travellers in average. Benchmarking studies in the area of customer service scores GVB traditionally poor after all. As  Volkskrant in a review of the book “Op de tram – Een jaar als conducteur in Amsterdam” (in English: "On the tram - One year as a conductor in Amsterdam") by Jorie Horsthuis recently wrote: "(...) some of the Amsterdam tram drivers are very customer-unfriendly and sometimes downright aggressive that they should be fired on the spot".

Balancia is not a supporter of the announced € 120 million cuts in urban transport in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, but supports further liberalization of the - until now closed - public transport market in these three cities. Balancia has supported various public transport companies in making good bids. Based on experience elsewhere in the Netherlands, we expect that the procurement in the three cities will lead to more efficient and customer-friendly public transport. By tendering it, the use of public transport in the three cities will increase further and the CO2 emissions and funding pressures will decrease. A development which is good for city regions and passengers!