Europe correspondent Christoph Nufer from the Swiss public TV broadcaster Schweizer Fernsehen travels to the Netherlands to produce a reportage for the program ’10 for 10’ about the way the Dutch try to manage the increasing road use on local and national scale.
Since a few years a small town in Friesland tests the ‘shared space’ concept: signs and the borders that separate road users are removed, which makes them much more conscious of each other. The result is a huge decrease in accidents and a much better traffic flow.
At the same time the Dutch try to fight the huge increase of traffic jam kilometers of around 10% a year. Apart from the fact that there is not much space left for extra asphalt in the Netherlands, the construction of new lanes will take far too long to be a real solution to the actual problems. Innovation in the use of the road and raising the consciousness of the drivers will be the only alternative.
New systems like ‘flexible use of emergency lanes’, high-way-entrance-dosage-systems and ‘highway section control’ are implemented and tested. On the main highways more rules and a high level of communication with the road users, seem to be the only solution to fight the numerous Dutch traffic jams. The motorists will first be informed, than guided, and in the end they will have to be totally controlled; so every inch of the available road will be utilised.
For this back ground reportage Featurez gave advice, did the research, set-up and planning, accompanied the filming and organised archive video footage.