Business As Usual

2010 - 2015

Cars continued to be the dominant mode of intercity travel. As more and more cars were added to the roads, traffic congestion became a perennial problem. With much higher standards of living as compared to other developing countries, Netherlands continued to see high rates of immigration. This further exacerbated the congestion problem. There was no significant increase in road network and any construction was generally limited to widening of roads. The peak hours stretch and the length of jams increased steadily. People were spending more time traveling which affected productivity and increased frustration. This also resulted in increased consumption of oil, ultimately causing more emission of greenhouse gases. The increased congestion problem was finally felt on a wide scale and people started to realize the gravity of the situation. Innovation in public transport was relatively slow which meant people did not have a very attractive alternative to traveling by cars. The cars continued to get better with respect to comfort and fuel economy and held their position as a status symbol, which made them more attractive to buy. The government stepped in and announced key policies to ease the traffic congestion. However the policies would take time to implement, and included measures such as use of ICT to control traffic and pay as you drive tax.

2015 - 2025

The government did not take serious action and development of public transport was happening at a slow pace. This meant that people still preferred to use cars and this led to increase in pollution to near maximum tolerable levels. Road network required a major thrust which was lacking and this led to heavy congestion. This forced the government to take action and push for better technologies that would ease the pollution and congestion problems. However, the results of this were not seen until 2025 to 2030. This period was also marked by a boom in the world and NL economy and lavish high end lifestyle that attracted many immigrants into the Netherlands. Population increased drastically. Along with the boom in the economy, for the first time a real scarcity of oil was felt and oil price soared.

2025 - 2040

By 2025, negotiations about renewable sources of energy had reached its climax. It was decided to bring an end to petrol/diesel dependency for transportation means. Hydrogen and electricity would be the new standard for cars and other road transport vehicles. Car manufacturers were able to mass produce fuel cell vehicles and put them on the market at the same price as conventional cars. At every tank station it was possible to charge cars with electricity or hydrogen.
Thanks to the oil scarcity as people had found out the benefits of small cars - they were not only more fuel efficient but also had it benefits as the Netherlands has increasingly become more congested. Mini cars were popular as people still saw car as a convenient way to travel but not as a status symbol. The Government even introduced strong policies to reduce the amount of big cars, such as higher taxes, which made it unattractive to buy them.
In 2035 the last bugs were removed from a computerized system which allowed cars to drive automatically on the highways without interference of the human driver. The system communicated with the other cars on the highway, GPS and the traffic information system. It was proven that the system was faultless. In 2040 after 5 years of excessive testing the system had become available for the public. The system would be able to reduce the distance between the cars and avoid the mistakes that humans made which actually created all the traffic jams. However in 2040 the congestion problem had been worse than ever, with the increasing popularity of the car and the cheap hydrogen available.