Last round

Thursday 9 November 2023
IM recovery operators carried out 39,712 vehicle recoveries in the last quarter of the 2019 - 2023 contract period. This is slightly more than the record that was set in the previous quarter, and 14% above the figure recorded for the same quarter of 2022. The fact that the IM contracts were due to expire had little impact on the response times achieved. The average response time throughout the country was 12.14 minutes, a few seconds above the figure in earlier quarters. In the new contract period, which started on 1 October 2023, it is expected that response times will fall. The response times that recovery operators submitted in bids are lower and monitoring of those standards has been tightened up. Recovery operators who repeatedly fail to meet the requirements might not just lose their district, as was always the case, but may now also be confronted with a temporary reduction in the rates they charge.

Christian Reinders of Autoberging Twente, flawless for the second successive time in district O85 (photo credit: Iza Fotografie)

Autoberging Twente was one of the three recovery operators that succeeded in completing 100% of the call-outs in one working area in a response time of less than 20 minutes, for the second quarter in a row. This happened in district O85, in the vicinity of Oldenzaal. This remarkable achievement was the result of quick responses to incoming reports and the use of the home addresses of employees to park recovery vehicles. When a report came in at 3:05 a.m. on 3 September, the driver on call needed no more than three minutes to get out of bed, get dressed, walk to his recovery vehicle and get the engine running. The secret was that he didn't have to leave from the company's office premises near Beuningen; rather from a farmstead a few kilometres closer to the site of the incident.

IM recovery operators with 100% performance

The other recovery operators with two immaculate quarterly reports in a row were Schoenmaker & Zn in Avenhorn (NH123) and Takel-, Berging- en Transportbedrijf A. Barendregt in Rhoon (ZH166). In ZH166, the watch has been systematically stopped at under twenty minutes since 1 January. So no surprise that Barendregt distinguished itself as the quickest recovery operator of the quarter. The company needed to leap into action almost 3,000 times and, on those call-outs, recorded an average response time of 7.37 minutes. A strikingly good result was also chalked up by Autax in Ommen. In the two districts awarded to this company, the average response time was under 10.00 minutes, a first for this contract period.

Quickest recovery operators, 2023-Q3

The tables list only districts for which a complete quarterly report has been published for the quarter just ended. These are districts in which twenty or more recovery operations were carried out and districts for which the quarter just ended was the last in a series of quarters in which the minimum of twenty recovery operations required for drawing up a report was exceeded. Average response times are reported after correction for delays as a result of congestion. In determining the kilometres of road in each district, the two carriageways of roads with divided carriageways are counted as separate roads. No rights may be derived from the information on the tables.