Traffic jams in the Netherlands: length and duration will almost double in 2023

The Dutch government says it wants to do everything it can to get Dutch people out of their cars and into using bicycles and public transport. For the time being, that doesn’t really work. The 2023 report from Rijkswaterstaat shows that the number of kilometers traveled on the highways has increased by almost 3 percent to 69.3 billion kilometers. Partly due to this increase, the Dutch spent longer in traffic jams in 2023. The traffic jams were heaviest in the following places.

According to RWS, rush hour traffic is by far the most important cause of traffic jams in the Netherlands. No less than 77.8 percent of the congestion was due to being too busy during rush hour. The next most common cause is accidents, which was the reason for only 11.4 percent of traffic jams. 5.5 percent of Dutch traffic jams in 2023 were due to road works.

Traffic jams in the Netherlands were almost twice as heavy in 2023

Rijkswaterstaat also looks at the severity of a traffic jam. This is the length of the traffic jams in kilometers multiplied by the number of minutes that people are stuck in traffic jams. The severity of traffic jams also increased in 2023. The number of kilometers in traffic jams increased from 443,000 to more than 834,000. RWS does not expect things to become brighter before 2024: ‘Due to the major maintenance task that Rijkswaterstaat is facing, we expect that the number of traffic jams due to work will increase in the near future.’

This is where most Dutch traffic jams were located in 2023

Congratulations to the A16 between Breda and Rotterdam: for the first time this highway is number one in the list with the most traffic jams in the Netherlands. On the connecting road between the A16 and the A20 towards Hoek van Holland, the traffic jam was no less than 619,395 kilometer minutes. This road was by far the most quiet.

In any case, it is wise to plan your trip well in the areas of Breda, Ridderkerk, Gorinchem and Rotterdam. Seven of the roads in this top ten lead to one of these cities. You will also come across various roads that may be familiar to you from the traffic jam reports.