Netherlands: Dutch people are the European champions for time spent in transportation to go to work

Traffic jams have become a national issue, and an electoral argument for the last general election.  Twice a day (at 8 am and 5 pm), the country is paralyzed, notably the west, in Randstad, a region which gathers Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam and Utrecht, the country’s four biggest cities.  Some employees living in Amsterdam and working 30 kilometers away, in Utrecht, would rather get up at 4 am and finish their night in their car on a parking lot rather than spend three or four hours stuck in traffic.  In 2007, the Central Planning Bureau (Centraal Planbureau, CPB), a government agency, said that approximately €3 billion were lost each year because of this, both in lost working time and environmental problems.  The Taskforce Mobiliteismanagement (TFMM), a work group created at the end of 2008 and run by former union leader Lodewijk de Waal gathers all players involved: employers, unions, government, cities, regions, as well as the Association of Dutch Drivers (ANWB), the KLM airline and large banks.  The aim is to “break the 9 to 5 tradition” and encourage new practices – staggered hours, telework…