Experts from the office of the federal Minister for the Economy, Kris Peeters (CD&V), have assessed the bill for bottlenecks in Brussels at more than €100 million.
Experts based their findings upon recent calculations and figures (2016) both established and supplied by various business organisations, such as Agoria and Beci.
The congestion costs are calculated thus: time lost owing to transport issues (8,960,000 hours for 400,000 vehicles on average on the road each day in Brussels). This figure is then multiplied by the value of the time lost to businesses (averaging 11.72 euros/hour according to various business organisations). We thus reach a total of €105,011,200.
In Antwerp, the situation is even worse than Brussels. There the congestion costs even exceed €150 million a year. Moreover this loss of time is increasing to critical levels: 11% more than 2015. Equally in Antwerp such bottlenecks are harmful to the Port of Antwerp, one of the “economic lungs” of Flanders and Belgium.
The Brussels Times
