We are cycling more, but traffic jams are not getting any shorter and the budget deficit is getting deeper. The solutions are there for the taking, write Bruno De Borger and Stef Proost.
In Belgium, we are counting on large-scale investments and the modal shift to solve mobility problems. To this end, we are deploying massive subsidies. So far, this policy has mainly led to increased bicycle use, which is a good thing in itself due to the beneficial health effects. Train use during rush hour has also increased, but this is a very expensive form of transport.
The measures taken have removed some cars from the traffic jams, but their place is quickly taken by new rush hour users. Traffic jams are not only a waste of time for car and truck drivers, they also have an impact on the labor market. Employees are reluctant to use the ring roads around Brussels or Antwerp every day. The numerous road works will increase capacity in the long term, but they will not eliminate traffic jams.
Three problems in our mobility system need to be addressed urgently. Perhaps now is the right time to put them back on the table: they will not only improve mobility, but also help to get budgets in order.
The first problem is company cars. According to the Planning Bureau, these cost us at least €5 billion per year. Company cars were originally introduced to circumvent restrictions on wage increases. Now they are mainly used as a form of salary increase that allows employers to avoid taxes and social security contributions. What’s more, the beneficiaries buy more expensive cars and drive more kilometers than those who have to buy their own cars.
This is a tax anomaly that is on the radar of all external regulators (the EU, the OECD, the IMF). The system is an example of bad policy: it costs the government a lot of money, causes additional traffic congestion costs, and encourages people to live further away from work. Moreover, it is antisocial. It is not the people with the weakest shoulders who drive company cars, but they do pay for them.
Rush hour charge
The second problem is the massive focus on electric cars. Owners do not have to pay excise duties on these cars, which makes them much cheaper to use than gasoline and diesel cars. We are encouraged to buy a more expensive electric car, which is cheaper to drive. Electric cars cause no (or less) climate damage, but they do lead to higher external accident costs because they are heavier than fossil fuel cars.
The electrification of the vehicle fleet is causing excise duty revenues on gasoline and diesel to fall rapidly, which is weighing on the budget. Perhaps this is therefore the perfect time to switch to a new tax system for car use. This could take the form of kilometer charges, increased by a rush hour surcharge at times and places prone to traffic jams. Thanks to rush hour charges, access to road capacity in the busiest places during rush hour would be limited to what the infrastructure can handle. This would allow traffic to flow smoothly again, even when there are roadworks, because the charge would automatically increase temporarily.
The former Brussels government and previous Flemish governments have already studied rush hour charges in detail. The system proved to be perfectly feasible and would also yield positive results for Brussels and Flanders. However, the political courage was lacking each time. Yet it has been proven to work abroad. Traffic jams have decreased dramatically, and if the revenue is used to reduce labor taxes, employment will increase, the weakest shoulders will not pay more than before, and we will have a much more efficient labor market.
Transport companies will also be happy with rush hour charges in the long run. Their delivery vans and trucks will finally be able to reach their destinations during rush hour without losing too much time. The productivity gains here are there for the taking. A higher kilometer charge for trucks is primarily a tax measure: it will not eliminate traffic jams because it is not a rush hour charge and leaves cars, which account for the largest share of road traffic, unaffected.
Rush hour rates
The third problem is public transport fares. On average, we spend 1 percent more of our GDP on public transport subsidies than other European countries. What role does public transport have to play in the modal shift? The use of trains and buses has risen sharply over the past ten years, but these modes of transport have an even more acute rush hour problem than cars. A number of trains are used almost exclusively to travel to Brussels in the morning and back again in the evening. During off-peak hours, they are superfluous.
This makes these train journeys very expensive, even when the train is full. Capacity during rush hour is too low, and this will become even more acute if car use during rush hour is discouraged. The solution is higher train fares during rush hour and lower fares during off-peak hours. In order to make the best possible use of existing train capacity, even more differentiation is needed than just between rush hour and off-peak hours.
Rush hour fares should also vary according to location and direction: a train traveling from Ghent to Brussels during the morning rush hour should be more expensive than in the opposite direction. Social adjustments for the most vulnerable can be built into subscription prices, but these social adjustments can also incorporate a difference between rush hour and off-peak periods.
Public transport fares are largely determined by politics; neither politicians nor users have any idea of the real costs. On average, a bus ride on De Lijn costs five times more than what the transport company receives for it.
Our mobility policy needs a dash of realism. We subsidize company cars, the use of electric cars is not taxed, and our public transport is excessively subsidized. Reform is within reach: systematically reduce subsidies for company cars, only give public transport subsidies to those who really need them, and introduce mileage charges and rush-hour rates for road transport. This will benefit both our budget and our mobility.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
I drive a company car and think that it’s the wrong policy, TFA is spot-on in how it characterized it,
Its obvious its translated with AI. It basically repeats the company car problem twice.
Ah yes, add more restrictive measures. That will surely increase our mobility.
Company cars is absolute disaster from budgetary and environment standpoint. Costing us billions, resulting in more traffic. Given our deep deficit, it should be scrapped to save those billions each year and reinvest in public transport.
Will the mobility budget not already tackle the first point?
EV bad… ok, sure. I’d rather have an EV than a Diesel in my street. Is it ideal, of course not, but a semi argument “costs for accidents are higher” doesn’t outweigh the benefits imo. And are the cars, even subsidized, cheaper? To drive, yes, but to buy – I have my doubts.
Talking about raising prices for public transport seems… weird. You want to push people to take public transport, not discourage.
Is it nice? No. But at least it’s cheap. Not all people can choose when they go to work, especially the “weakest shoulders” that they keep talking about.
If it is traffic jams that are the issue: why have so many companies recalled people back to the office when the Covid-period has proven that homework is possible in a lot of cases? Again about traffic jams especially on Antwerp and Brussels ringroad: are these mainly due to company cars or to the growing number of trucks? There is a price to pay if you want to make both a harbour and an airport a hub for moving goods.
Conveniently letting out the part that those end of lease company cars keep affordable second hand cars available to the public.
At least they used to. Now they are the only reason anyone ever gets an electric car, something the government needs to push because of the limitations they imposed on themselves.
Show me an electric car that’s cheaper than an ice car in both cost and fuel consumption.
Taxes and surcharge on electricity are what? 75% don’t tell me anyone is circumventing any consumption tax.
There is nothing courageous about taxing people even more when they are expected to be at their jobs physically at a specific time. Do they think people sit in traffic jams because they love it? Did they suddenly shift from protecting the weaker shoulders (those who will generally not be able to work flexible hours or remote jobs) and just hammer them with more taxes? And those delivery trucks will not eat this cost, they will push it onto the consumer. So you pay taxes twice. Great plan, adding more taxes to the country with the most taxes in the world!
The problem of public transport warrants a whole new discussion on price, availability and safety.
What kind of regard writes this stuff?
Here is your dose of reality: what is proposed here would drop everybody’s living standards.
Sure: the only way to reduce traffic jams is to make these more expensive for everyone that has to drive or move at that time. Plus: company cars are to blame.
Meanwhile, the Flemish government has announced they will cut – again – bus lines which are “not performing” and canning mobility projects like the tramway next to the A12.
“Public transport is expensive”. Of course it is, as this is a service the government provides to the public. Did these authors took into account the costs to create and maintain the roads? Given the lamentable state of our highways, I doubt they did. For comparison: the Oosterweelverbinding was budgeted for 3,5 billion euro. Latest estimates are now at 17 (!) billion euro.
People that are driving trough rush hour have no choice than to be there (for their jobs), and homeworking is in decline. So in the end these authors are just stating that we all have to pay more money to the government, which will not be invested in public transport, and given the state or art of our deficit, disappear in the big mess it already is.
But hey, by all means, let’s make the citizens fight about company cars and EV’s. So we make them responsible – and pay – the mess we made and are making of our public mobility.
Sorry the part I am scratching my head is to make trains also more expensive. What do you expect people to do then? work closer to home? sure, except the high paying jobs are all in Brussels or Antwerp, not in the rural towns around them.
So would you also incentivise those jobs to spread around more outside the city? maybe more telework?
This article forgets to mention the main traffic issue in Belgium: a lot of people, living on a small peice of land, with bad planning (lintbebouwing). Flanders is now more or less one big city, with some green areas in between. You can compare to a single mayor city, like London. If you take that as your reference point, traffic jams aren’t too bad to be honest. Driving from one side of London to the other would take even more time than driving from Kortrijk to Antwerp in rush hour.
The idea that public transport is expensive, when we spend billions on building and maintaining roads lacks some critical thinking: Oosterweel costing 17 billion € alone, while we spend 3.5 billion on the nmbs (if that number is still correct). More and more convenient public transport is needed. Look at the bigger towns in Belgium, trams and buses are packed. Why? They are convenient, closeby,… that works. A lot of people use them, if they are that good. That needs to be expanded.
I get the point on company cars. The thruth is, with the tax burden already being very high, it is the only thing a company can use to make a difference for people they want to pay more. The tax system in Belgium build to redistribute money to people who earn less and increased wages are at some just taxed away (not completely of course). If that stops, companies can stop handing out company cars as wages. The company car discussion is not a discussion to couple to mobility, but to the taxes on wages. I deliberately do not use the word income tax, as their is only a tax on wages in Belgium. Income should be all taxed in the same way, to make sure those broad shoulders pay most. Now, we’re just screwing the people who work.
Yes we need more taxes (congestion charges are taxes) 💀
The USA is full of cars and full of traffic jams, not because of company cars. But due to the alternative either not existing or being horrible.
At some point our cars will work in a mesh network, connecting to the cars in front and behind us and also with the trafic lights or other devices we have at that point.
Reducing the “accordéon traffic jams” by moving at the same time as if we’re on a virtual conveyor belt.
For now, instead of hurting those who have a company car, it would be more beneficial to come up an overhaul to our transportation network.
People take the cheapest or most convenient transportation method. When the bus is not reliable, it is not convenient.
People also are also influenced most by the first km and the last km.
The rush hour charge for trains and public transport is absurd.
Generally people have to be at the office around 9ish, there is very little leeway when it comes to that and parents who need to drop off kids can’t really take the 7am train. And the same goes in the evening, the earliest most people get off is 16.30 give or take with most around 17pm. It’s bonkers to charge more around that time because there are no other alternatives.
15 comments
We are cycling more, but traffic jams are not getting any shorter and the budget deficit is getting deeper. The solutions are there for the taking, write Bruno De Borger and Stef Proost.
In Belgium, we are counting on large-scale investments and the modal shift to solve mobility problems. To this end, we are deploying massive subsidies. So far, this policy has mainly led to increased bicycle use, which is a good thing in itself due to the beneficial health effects. Train use during rush hour has also increased, but this is a very expensive form of transport.
The measures taken have removed some cars from the traffic jams, but their place is quickly taken by new rush hour users. Traffic jams are not only a waste of time for car and truck drivers, they also have an impact on the labor market. Employees are reluctant to use the ring roads around Brussels or Antwerp every day. The numerous road works will increase capacity in the long term, but they will not eliminate traffic jams.
Three problems in our mobility system need to be addressed urgently. Perhaps now is the right time to put them back on the table: they will not only improve mobility, but also help to get budgets in order.
The first problem is company cars. According to the Planning Bureau, these cost us at least €5 billion per year. Company cars were originally introduced to circumvent restrictions on wage increases. Now they are mainly used as a form of salary increase that allows employers to avoid taxes and social security contributions. What’s more, the beneficiaries buy more expensive cars and drive more kilometers than those who have to buy their own cars.
This is a tax anomaly that is on the radar of all external regulators (the EU, the OECD, the IMF). The system is an example of bad policy: it costs the government a lot of money, causes additional traffic congestion costs, and encourages people to live further away from work. Moreover, it is antisocial. It is not the people with the weakest shoulders who drive company cars, but they do pay for them.
Rush hour charge
The second problem is the massive focus on electric cars. Owners do not have to pay excise duties on these cars, which makes them much cheaper to use than gasoline and diesel cars. We are encouraged to buy a more expensive electric car, which is cheaper to drive. Electric cars cause no (or less) climate damage, but they do lead to higher external accident costs because they are heavier than fossil fuel cars.
The electrification of the vehicle fleet is causing excise duty revenues on gasoline and diesel to fall rapidly, which is weighing on the budget. Perhaps this is therefore the perfect time to switch to a new tax system for car use. This could take the form of kilometer charges, increased by a rush hour surcharge at times and places prone to traffic jams. Thanks to rush hour charges, access to road capacity in the busiest places during rush hour would be limited to what the infrastructure can handle. This would allow traffic to flow smoothly again, even when there are roadworks, because the charge would automatically increase temporarily.
The former Brussels government and previous Flemish governments have already studied rush hour charges in detail. The system proved to be perfectly feasible and would also yield positive results for Brussels and Flanders. However, the political courage was lacking each time. Yet it has been proven to work abroad. Traffic jams have decreased dramatically, and if the revenue is used to reduce labor taxes, employment will increase, the weakest shoulders will not pay more than before, and we will have a much more efficient labor market.
Transport companies will also be happy with rush hour charges in the long run. Their delivery vans and trucks will finally be able to reach their destinations during rush hour without losing too much time. The productivity gains here are there for the taking. A higher kilometer charge for trucks is primarily a tax measure: it will not eliminate traffic jams because it is not a rush hour charge and leaves cars, which account for the largest share of road traffic, unaffected.
Rush hour rates
The third problem is public transport fares. On average, we spend 1 percent more of our GDP on public transport subsidies than other European countries. What role does public transport have to play in the modal shift? The use of trains and buses has risen sharply over the past ten years, but these modes of transport have an even more acute rush hour problem than cars. A number of trains are used almost exclusively to travel to Brussels in the morning and back again in the evening. During off-peak hours, they are superfluous.
This makes these train journeys very expensive, even when the train is full. Capacity during rush hour is too low, and this will become even more acute if car use during rush hour is discouraged. The solution is higher train fares during rush hour and lower fares during off-peak hours. In order to make the best possible use of existing train capacity, even more differentiation is needed than just between rush hour and off-peak hours.
Rush hour fares should also vary according to location and direction: a train traveling from Ghent to Brussels during the morning rush hour should be more expensive than in the opposite direction. Social adjustments for the most vulnerable can be built into subscription prices, but these social adjustments can also incorporate a difference between rush hour and off-peak periods.
Public transport fares are largely determined by politics; neither politicians nor users have any idea of the real costs. On average, a bus ride on De Lijn costs five times more than what the transport company receives for it.
Our mobility policy needs a dash of realism. We subsidize company cars, the use of electric cars is not taxed, and our public transport is excessively subsidized. Reform is within reach: systematically reduce subsidies for company cars, only give public transport subsidies to those who really need them, and introduce mileage charges and rush-hour rates for road transport. This will benefit both our budget and our mobility.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
I drive a company car and think that it’s the wrong policy, TFA is spot-on in how it characterized it,
Its obvious its translated with AI. It basically repeats the company car problem twice.
Ah yes, add more restrictive measures. That will surely increase our mobility.
Company cars is absolute disaster from budgetary and environment standpoint. Costing us billions, resulting in more traffic. Given our deep deficit, it should be scrapped to save those billions each year and reinvest in public transport.
Will the mobility budget not already tackle the first point?
EV bad… ok, sure. I’d rather have an EV than a Diesel in my street. Is it ideal, of course not, but a semi argument “costs for accidents are higher” doesn’t outweigh the benefits imo. And are the cars, even subsidized, cheaper? To drive, yes, but to buy – I have my doubts.
Talking about raising prices for public transport seems… weird. You want to push people to take public transport, not discourage.
Is it nice? No. But at least it’s cheap. Not all people can choose when they go to work, especially the “weakest shoulders” that they keep talking about.
If it is traffic jams that are the issue: why have so many companies recalled people back to the office when the Covid-period has proven that homework is possible in a lot of cases? Again about traffic jams especially on Antwerp and Brussels ringroad: are these mainly due to company cars or to the growing number of trucks? There is a price to pay if you want to make both a harbour and an airport a hub for moving goods.
Conveniently letting out the part that those end of lease company cars keep affordable second hand cars available to the public.
At least they used to. Now they are the only reason anyone ever gets an electric car, something the government needs to push because of the limitations they imposed on themselves.
Show me an electric car that’s cheaper than an ice car in both cost and fuel consumption.
Taxes and surcharge on electricity are what? 75% don’t tell me anyone is circumventing any consumption tax.
There is nothing courageous about taxing people even more when they are expected to be at their jobs physically at a specific time. Do they think people sit in traffic jams because they love it? Did they suddenly shift from protecting the weaker shoulders (those who will generally not be able to work flexible hours or remote jobs) and just hammer them with more taxes? And those delivery trucks will not eat this cost, they will push it onto the consumer. So you pay taxes twice. Great plan, adding more taxes to the country with the most taxes in the world!
The problem of public transport warrants a whole new discussion on price, availability and safety.
What kind of regard writes this stuff?
Here is your dose of reality: what is proposed here would drop everybody’s living standards.
Sure: the only way to reduce traffic jams is to make these more expensive for everyone that has to drive or move at that time. Plus: company cars are to blame.
Meanwhile, the Flemish government has announced they will cut – again – bus lines which are “not performing” and canning mobility projects like the tramway next to the A12.
“Public transport is expensive”. Of course it is, as this is a service the government provides to the public. Did these authors took into account the costs to create and maintain the roads? Given the lamentable state of our highways, I doubt they did. For comparison: the Oosterweelverbinding was budgeted for 3,5 billion euro. Latest estimates are now at 17 (!) billion euro.
People that are driving trough rush hour have no choice than to be there (for their jobs), and homeworking is in decline. So in the end these authors are just stating that we all have to pay more money to the government, which will not be invested in public transport, and given the state or art of our deficit, disappear in the big mess it already is.
But hey, by all means, let’s make the citizens fight about company cars and EV’s. So we make them responsible – and pay – the mess we made and are making of our public mobility.
Sorry the part I am scratching my head is to make trains also more expensive. What do you expect people to do then? work closer to home? sure, except the high paying jobs are all in Brussels or Antwerp, not in the rural towns around them.
So would you also incentivise those jobs to spread around more outside the city? maybe more telework?
This article forgets to mention the main traffic issue in Belgium: a lot of people, living on a small peice of land, with bad planning (lintbebouwing). Flanders is now more or less one big city, with some green areas in between. You can compare to a single mayor city, like London. If you take that as your reference point, traffic jams aren’t too bad to be honest. Driving from one side of London to the other would take even more time than driving from Kortrijk to Antwerp in rush hour.
The idea that public transport is expensive, when we spend billions on building and maintaining roads lacks some critical thinking: Oosterweel costing 17 billion € alone, while we spend 3.5 billion on the nmbs (if that number is still correct). More and more convenient public transport is needed. Look at the bigger towns in Belgium, trams and buses are packed. Why? They are convenient, closeby,… that works. A lot of people use them, if they are that good. That needs to be expanded.
I get the point on company cars. The thruth is, with the tax burden already being very high, it is the only thing a company can use to make a difference for people they want to pay more. The tax system in Belgium build to redistribute money to people who earn less and increased wages are at some just taxed away (not completely of course). If that stops, companies can stop handing out company cars as wages. The company car discussion is not a discussion to couple to mobility, but to the taxes on wages. I deliberately do not use the word income tax, as their is only a tax on wages in Belgium. Income should be all taxed in the same way, to make sure those broad shoulders pay most. Now, we’re just screwing the people who work.
Yes we need more taxes (congestion charges are taxes) 💀
The USA is full of cars and full of traffic jams, not because of company cars. But due to the alternative either not existing or being horrible.
At some point our cars will work in a mesh network, connecting to the cars in front and behind us and also with the trafic lights or other devices we have at that point.
Reducing the “accordéon traffic jams” by moving at the same time as if we’re on a virtual conveyor belt.
For now, instead of hurting those who have a company car, it would be more beneficial to come up an overhaul to our transportation network.
People take the cheapest or most convenient transportation method. When the bus is not reliable, it is not convenient.
People also are also influenced most by the first km and the last km.
The rush hour charge for trains and public transport is absurd.
Generally people have to be at the office around 9ish, there is very little leeway when it comes to that and parents who need to drop off kids can’t really take the 7am train. And the same goes in the evening, the earliest most people get off is 16.30 give or take with most around 17pm. It’s bonkers to charge more around that time because there are no other alternatives.
All that will do is make existing problems worse.
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