A route to success? Effects of the Betuwe-route examined

In this thesis, the effects of the Betuweroute are investigated. The goal is to find out what the effects of the Betuweroute on transportation and society in the Netherlands are. Current research on the project is mainly focused on evaluating the expectations formulated when planning the Betuweroute and on the costs involved in building and maintaining the route. This research tries to add a more broad evaluation by also looking at the effect on amount of freight transported by rail, rail passengers, passenger train punctuality, road traffic intensity and emissions generated by transportation. To test this, various t-test and regressions are performed on data gathered from multiple sources. The most prominent results are a significant positive effect on amount of freight transported by rail of 5.5 million gross tonnes, the fact that there are less trains on the mixed tracks because of the Betuweroute and the effect of a reduction in emissions ranging from 20,937 tonnes of CO2 to 50,445 tonnes of CO2. Effects on amount of rail passengers, passenger train punctuality and traffic intensity could not be found in the regressions. These results lead to the conclusion that the Betuweroute has some positive effects. Regarding the project as a failure therefore seems not right, especially because there are some mitigating circumstances for not meeting the original expectations.