New tunnel in the Rotterdam harbour area, The Netherlands

Developed by: Goudappel Coffeng BV
Client: Nedmobiel BV in cooperation with the Rotterdam Harbour Company, the Rotterdam Chamber of Commerce and the Rotterdam regional authorities.
Country: The Netherlands
Agent: Goudappel Coffeng
Project year: 2009

The Chamber of commerce and the Rotterdam Harbour company have taken the initiative to bring the construction of a cross-river connection to the west of the Benelux tunnel, in the harbour area of Rotterdam higher on the public agenda as additional congestion is being expected on the existing two cross-river connections (the Benelux tunnel and the Brienenoord bridge).

Currently the highway ‘A15' is the only access road to the western harbour area. This is considered not only vulnerable, but the demand on it is expected to increase, especially when the enormous extension of the harbour area into the North sea, known as the 2 nd Maasvlakte, will become fully operational.

Goudappel Coffeng has been requested by Nedmobiel BV, known for Public Private Partnerships and Road pricing & tolls, to investigate the possibility of a toll access system for the harbour area. This was carried out by developing a macroscopic dynamic multi-user class model in OmniTRANS.

In the case of road pricing/toll, the value of time (VOT) plays an essential part on the route choice selection. This necessitates the calculation of travel times that properly accounts for the effect of congestion over time, justifying a dynamic approach over a static one. In addition, the dynamic route choice makes it possible to determine new routes during the modelling period as congestion changes. Since not all motorists respond the same way to changes in toll charge, the model included different user groups with their respective value of time (home-work, business, transport of goods, etc.).

Using the OmniTRANS concept of variants, different infrastructural and road pricing scenario's have been modelled for different period of the day (peak AM, peak PM, and inter peak), leading to a balanced estimate of the toll revenue. Insights were also gained on the potential effects on the overall traffic situation.

 You can find more information about this project on www.nedmobiel.com