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Again more accidents in 2015
Friday, February 12, 2016 (update March 15, 2016)
The number of accidents on IM roads rose in 2015 for the second successive year. 23,437 accidents were reported to the National Central Reporting Point (LCM) of Stichting Incident Management Nederland, on roads subject to incident management. Of those accidents, 18,182 took place on the main road network, 7% more than in 2014 and the highest number since 2010. The rise in the number of road traffic accidents was matched by a rise in traffic density. The Traffic Information Service (VID) reported a 23% rise in overall congestion volume in 2015.
Accident on the A16 motorway in Rotterdam
In 2015, more breakdown moves were also carried out by IM recovery companies. Reports of this kind, whereby stranded vehicles that represent a hazard to traffic are towed away, rose by 16% to a total of 37,609, or more than one hundred per day. Also notable was the rise in the number of occasions on which IM recovery companies were deployed to secure incident locations.
The securing of incident locations is generally carried out by road inspectors of Rijkswaterstaat. If the road inspector is not able to reach the accident location on time, this work is increasingly entrusted by the Rijkswaterstaat traffic control centre to recovery companies. This helps prevent delays in implementation. Last year, IM recovery companies received 2,195 call-outs to secure incident locations, more than three times as many as in 2014.
| Type of report | 2015 | 2014 | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accident | 23.437 | 21.898 | 7% |
| Breakdown | 37.609 | 32.531 | 16% |
| Safety | 2.195 | 676 | 225% |
| Unattended vehicle | 1.937 | 1.826 | 6% |
| Wasted callout | 14.718 | 12.376 | 19% |
| Main road network | 69.261 | 59.853 | 16% |
| Underlying | 10.635 | 9.454 | 12% |
| Police | 26.375 | 25.848 | 5% |
| Rijkswaterstaat | 40.112 | 31.429 | 28% |
| ANWB and other | 13.409 | 12.030 | 11% |
| Total reports | 79.896 | 69.307 | 15% |
The growth in the number of IM reports was above all attributed to the Rijkswaterstaat traffic control centres. However, both the police and the emergency call centres were also more active in 2015 than in previous years. The increase in the number of reports was not equally shared across the country. In the three northerly provinces, Flevoland and Utrecht, the number of IM reports rose by more than 25%. In Noord-Holland, Noord-Brabant and Limburg, growth as compared to 2014 was just 6%. The breakdown of the number of IM reports across the various recovery districts appears in the document IM reports per district in 2015.