Differential analysis of indirect economic effects HSL-Zuid (English summary)

There is a limited difference in the indirect economic effects between the previously agreed offer for train services on the High Speed Line South (HSL-South) and the NS’s (Netherlands Railways) recently developed new proposal. For domestic passenger traffic, the new proposal results in lower passenger volume forecasts, whereby - also to a limited extent - fewer indirect economic effects are expected. This difference in indirect economic effects will particularly concern labour market effects within the Amsterdam – Rotterdam corridor.

This report is available in Dutch.

Regarding international train traffic, the differences in the packages of services vary greatly, but because there are only minor differences in passenger volumes, the differences in indirect effects are also limited. The indirect effects vary per region. Due to the fact that the benefits gained by one location in the Netherlands largely come at the expense of other locations in the Netherlands, the difference in effects nationally is smaller than it is in the various regions.

These are the conclusions of the KiM Netherlands Institute for Transport Policy Analysis’ report, titled, ‘Analysis of differences in indirect economic effects HSL-South’. Following the decision to no longer operate using V250 stock, the NS, together with other transport companies, offered a new proposal for HSL-South train services. This proposal is compared with the package of train service proposals agreed to in 2012 in the bargaining agreement established between the NS and the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment. KiM’s qualitative analysis is a building block for a broader set of analyses, tests, and evaluations conducted by various parties, in order to arrive at a more complete assessment of the NS’s new proposal. As for the discernible differences in indirect effects, no final conclusions can be attributed to the wider social costs and benefits perspective, as the inherent influence of direct effects is much greater.