Mobility management at Amsterdam Southern Business Areas

Location

The southern part of Amsterdam has two different business areas: Amsterdam-Zuidoost and Zuidas.

Zuidas. High-grade buisiness park, international top location, located between Amstel and Schinkel at both sides of the beltway A10 south. The ITC-station Zuid/WTC is situated at the core of the business area. See for a detailed map of Zuidas here.

Amsterdam-Zuidoost. High-grade buisinesspark, also amusement, such as a large stadium (ArenA), a music hall and a large cinema, next to the Bijlmer railway station. For a map of the location click here.  

Mobility profile

Numbers of travellers
Zuid-as. In the Zuidas area 45,000 people find employment. In the current plans this number is expected to increase to 70,000 in the forthoming years

Amsterdam-Zuidoost. Over 55,000 people work in the Amsterdam-Zuidoost area. Besides workers, the area welcomes 40,000 visitors every day. Since Amsterdam-Zuidoost is more and more focussing on large events and amusement, the flow of vistors is expected to grow much faster than the flow of employees.

Origins of travellers
Amsterdam-Zuidoost / Zuid-as. The postal codes have been collected of 30,000 people working for companies in the Amsterdam-Zuidoost area. This data has been used to take stock of their places of residence. The result: 31% of staff live in Amsterdam or its close surroundings, the other 69% are coming from a wide area surrounding Amsterdam.  

Modal split

Zuid-as.
At present, the car share is 52%, public transport share is 29% and bicycle share is 19%.

Accessibility profile 

Zuid-as
Zuid-as is accessible by all ways op public transport. From the Amsterdam point of view, the car accessibility is can be seen as quite good. The beltway A10 is very nearby  and plenty of underground parking facilities are available (25-30 EUR/day).

Institutional context 

The national government is reponsable for the land development and has appointed Zuidas as one of the key national transport projects: Zuidas is the most expensive piece of land in the Netherlands. It therefore has been decided recently to build the infrastructure (rail and road) around Zuidas underground as much as possible in order to a) tie up both parts of the city and b) to save on land.

The Zuid-As Inc. is under construction, in which companies as well as the governement will participate. The governement has put aside € 334 million to develop the Zuidas. Matching funding from private parties is considered essential.

For the Zuidas, a standard parking value of one parking permit (= place) per ten employees was laid down. This value is thought acceptable because the area 's accessibility by public transport is excellent. On the basis of the Dutch Environmental Management Act (Wet Milieubeheer) the authorities can oblige businesses to map their company’s traffic and transport. The city council may make additional demands in order to decrease the number of transport movements, but is not empowered to impose concrete measures. Reason for imposing measures is often the air quality standards.

Motivation for mobility management

Zuidas.
The Zuidas area is undergoing a large-scale reconstruction, which will take over 20 years to complete. This development has a big impact on the area’s accessibility, as both construction traffic and new workers in the future office buildings cause a great deal of extra traffic. Commuter traffic, business traffic and logistic transport (for construction activities) will all suffer the consequences. That is why special attention will be paid to the area’s accessibility during the period of construction. The focus will be on business and commuter traffic in particular. The private sector plays an important part in the plans: after all, businesses are able to influence their staff’s mobility behaviour.
The target for the Amsterdam-Zuidoost area is 5,000 fewer cars in rush-hour traffic.

Zuidoost-Amsterdam.
The immediate reason for taking mobility measures in the Amsterdam-Zuidoost area is the large-scale maintenance work being done to the A9 motorway, the Gaasperdammerweg. Between 27 May and mid-September 2005 this road has been undergoing major reconstruction. If no measures would have been taken, tailbacks in traffic coming mainly from Almere en ’t Gooi would be longer than usual – notwithstanding the fact that it was summer. In addition, major reconstruction work to the A10, A1 and A6 motorways is planned for the coming years, while mobility is expected to continue to grow.
The target for the Zuidas area is to achieve a share of 50% for public transport, for all movements (presently 35%). Mobility management will play an important part.

Bus and other public transport improvements

During the reconstruction of the A4/A10, 2 shuttle buses were launched. They have been withdrawn when the reconstruction was finished. The buses were highly popular and were part of the Zuidoost Pass.

Encouraging pooling

In 2005 a trial was launched with five carpool vans at Amsterdam Southern Business Areas. These vehicles are classified as scheduled-service busses, allowing them to use the emergency lane and the bus lane on the Flevoland – Amsterdam-Zuidoost route. They have a transmitter on board to open barriers. The police and the Ministry of Transport, among others, set great store on safety. The Vanpool drivers have been given instructions and a handbook. The driver is one of the staff members. They are not allowed to drive the vehicles during office hours. Should problems arise, a stand-by driver, a taxi and a helpdesk are available. The vans are equipped with a microchip, allowing them to be monitored (tracking and tracing). 

During August 2007 the highway A9 was reconstructed. For that purpose, 60 extra carpool vans were provided as part of the A9 Bereikbaar Pass. After the reconstruction is twas decided to keep carpool vans running.

Right now,  60 extra carpool vans are running due tot the road reconstruction of the A6 till June 2008, as part of the A6 Bereikbaar Pass.  

In general, the level of oocupancy of the carpool van is 4 out of 6 persons.  For more information, check out www.vanpool.nl.

Promoting cycling

Businesses are not that interested in actively promoting bicycles since the municipality is not able to maintain order (theft, illegal parking), therefore biking is not seen as an attractive way of transport.

However, bicycle use is stimulated by:

• The personalised travel advice, which involves biking;
• The Zuidoost Pass and Zuidas Pass, that also provide the use of ‘OV-fiets’.

Combined solutions

Pilot Zuidoost Pass
During the 16 weeks that the A9 motorway (the Gaasperdammerweg) was undergoing major repairs in summer 2005, 17,000 workers have been allowed to travel with the Zuidoost Pass. These people were not public transport patrons. The passes gave their bearer access to existing public transport as well as to any extra, chartered transport capacity (shuttle buses), as well as OV-fiets (loan bikes). Both the companies and the Ministry of Transport have made funds available for this (€ 59.50 per Pass).

To make the pass extra advantageous to use, a special deal was made with Inland Revenue. The Zuidoost Pass was made available as a supplement to regular transport allowances. Inland Revenue  agreed not to tax the pass, in view of the large scale of the reconstruction and its far-reaching social ramifications. This has no precedent in the Netherlands.

51% of the Zuidoost Passes have actually been used. Aftere ending of the works the pass lost validity. About 5-6% of the pass users structurally switched to public transport.  For more highlights regarding the Zuidoost pass, click here.

Following the success of the Zuidoost Pass the Minister of Transport said she will expressly bring the public-transport options, such as the public-transport pass and other mobility management measures, to the motorist’s attention whenever large-scale road construction work takes place.

In 2007/2008 various road reconstructions took place, for each a Bereikbaar Pass was developed and distibuted similar to the Zuidoost Pass. A detailed evaluation report is not available yet, though these Passes are expected to be as succesfull as the Zuidoostpas.

Personal travel advice
One of the initiatives at the Zuidas within OPTIMUM² is called "Destination Work". For "Destination Work" a computer programm has been developed that generates a travel advice for all modes of transport, including costs and travel times and tailored to the place of residence and work of an individual employee and the travel arrangements of his company. If employees want to experience public transport, they are offered a 2 month public transport card in exchange for their travel allowance.

The programm is ready and working now and a pilot to actually implement the personal travel advice with the academic hospital is foreseen in summer 2008. Various other companies have already expressed their interest.   To see an example how the individual travel advice might look like, click here

Important side-effect of the personalised travel advice is the more it will be used the more insight will be gained on the origin and destination of employees (traffic flows), and the more demand-driven transport solutions can be developed and supplied.

For more information (in Dutch) about "Destination Work", click here.

Travel facility point
A helpdesk was created for van pooling. In 2006 the helpdesk was extended to serve other issues as well. Right now, the travel facility point is run by Verkeeradvies (consulting body of the local/regional authorities). In the future, it should be part of the park management and paid by businesses.

Mobility management process

Mobility management at Amsterdam Southern business areas is being coordinated by the "Initiatiefgroep mobility management Amsterdam Southern business areas". The following organisations participate in the Initiatiefgroep.

Projectbureau Zuidas/AKZ:

• The Projectbureau is leading the Initiatiefgroep and responsible for the planning and implementation of mobility measures;
• Co-financing OPTIMUM².

ORAM (Employer Organisation Region Amsterdam):

• Co-writer mobility management plan;
• Working on the rank and file of the party, thus raising commitment with companies for mobility management (consultation, visits and meetings);
• Future park manager on behalf of the employers.

   

Individual companies:

• Internal promotional activities to inform employees about (new) mobility management measures.  

Municipality of Amsterdam

• Commisioner of the Initiatiefgroep;
• Developer accessibility maps;
• Supplier of mobility figures regarding Amsterdam Southern Business Areas.

   

Verkeer.advies 

Verkeer.advies is the bureau that carries out the joint mobility management of the Province of North Holland, the Regional Authority of Amsterdam and the Chamber of Commerce Amsterdam.

• Project leader of the Initiatiefgroep;
• Implementation of personal trave advice and travel facility point;
• Project manager OPTIMUM²  (including accessibility maps).

   

To learn more about the mobility management process at Amsterdam Southern Business Areas, read the project plan (in Dutch). 

Some key lessons from the mobility management process at Amsterdam Southern Areas:

• Bear in mind, it takes lots of time to develop a good product;
• An (acute) problem is needed to convince companies of the need for mobility management;
• Companies want to see for themselves whether a solution actually works. Therefore, a bottum-up approach with pilots is recommended;
• Also the environment is back on the agenda, for instance the air quality norms and CO2-emissions (Al Gore), which enhances the interest in mobility management 

Marketing and communication

Websites
For each reconstruction a website was developed, with information about the reason and duration and in particular information about the availability and prospects of the Bereikbaar Pass.  

To learn more about these Passes, click on 

http://www.amsterdamzuidoostbereikbaar.nl/

http://www.a4a10zuidbereikbaar.nl/

http://www.a6bereikbaar.nl/

http://www.a9bereikbaar.nl/

So far, the webiste  www.A4A10zuidbereikbaar.nl has attracted over 100,000 visitors.

Accessibility maps
Important part of the OPTIMUM² activities was the development and testing of so-called accessibility maps.   Using postcode data from companies and traffic flow data, the maps can show traffic flow under different circumstances, e.g. when a new road is being constructed or a new development causes diversions. The accessibility maps for the Zuidas area are now up and running.

Accessibility Maps (the link between the zoning plan and the traffic model) have 3 main purposes:

1. Give the planners insight into where accessibility problems could arise due to the building plans (be it office buildings or infrastructure);

2. Feed data of intended mobility management measures into the system and present them according to their impact on accessibility;

3. Use the output in communications with employers to show and predict when accessibility problems in the future will affect their business. We think that by giving this concrete information to the employers it will raise their commitment to take action at an earlier stage than has been the case so far.

The maps have been shown to companies to demonstrate the benefits of working on mobility management measures to minimise the disruption to them of the redevelopment process. It can also show the impact of, for example, implementing a car share scheme. The visual reproduction of measures and impacts has been most helpful to involve companies!

Contact

Would you like to hear more about mobility management at Amsterdam Southern Buisness Areas?

Please contact Wouter Verkerk (verkerk@verkeeradvies.nl)

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