ABSTRACT
Recently, the Dutch government has decided to build a new rail connection for the transport of goods, the Betuwe line. This is to link Rotterdam, Europe's premier seaporty to its (German) hinterland. A critical evaluation of the planning and decision making process (Drewe and Janssen 1996) has revealed a major flaw of a strategic nature. Why is there a need for the Betuwe line has not been sufficiently explained. Referring to the seaport of Rotterdam needing the new rail connection to connection to secure its posirtion as 'mainport', evidently has rather tended to clinch any fundamental debate. 'Mainport' has been used as a slogan. The danger with slogans is that they keep us from penetrating to the heart and essence of the problem. Of course, expertise has been provided, even a large amount. It boils down to assumingf that the predicted growth of containers, cargo and bulk - to be transported along the East-West axis - meets with infrastructure bottlenecks and therefore asks for additional capacity. This turns out to be rail capacity, in order to strengthen the multimodality of the port (also anticipating the possible political pressure for rail transport of goods). The future mainport function of Rotterdam seems to imply continued growth of flows of goods along the axis at a rate of 93 percent over a period of 25 years (see Table 12.1). Not all the goods transport along the East-West axis originatre from or arrive at the port of Rotterdam, although the position of this seaport is a dominant one. The table also shows that container flows are expected to be the fastest growing category of goods. Bulk will only grow by 57 percent until 2014 according to the experts, but will still remain the bulk of the goods transported.
