Repairs to A15 motorway bridge will cost hauliers €600k a day

The partial closure of a motorway bridge in Rotterdam for repairs is expected to cost the transport sector at least €600,000 a day because of longer journeys.

The bridge, which carries traffic on the A15 to the Maasvlakte, was closed a week ago on safety grounds after inspectors found cracks in the main beam.

Traffic will be restricted to the hard shoulder during emergency repairs, which are expected to last six to eight weeks. The bridge carries 36,500 vehicles a day, including 15,500 heavy goods vehicles.

On the first day of the works, September 17, a 12km tailback built up behind the bridge, adding an hour to the journey.

Transport en Logistiek Nederland (TLN), which represents the sector, surveyed its members on the impact of the closure and found that they expect journeys to take an extra 15 to 60 minutes.

Every 30-minute delay costs €600,000 when projected across an entire day’s traffic, TLN calculated.

“The longer the disruption lasts, the faster the damage adds up,” said TLN chair Elisabeth Post. “Especially if the old bridge eventually has to be removed entirely, which will reduce capacity further.”

The road and rail bridges were last renovated in 2021, ahead of plans to replace them entirely after 2030.

The state of infrastructure in the Netherlands is becoming a growing problem. The Merwedebrug, which takes traffic on the A27, was closed to lorries and coaches in July, at a cost of €1.5 million a day, while the A28 at Nijkerk was shut for 48 hours at the start of September after inspectors found sand and gravel holding up the base supports had been eroded.

The government announced an extra investment of €1.5 billion in next year’s budget to spend on maintaining roads, railways and waterways, but the full cost of the maintenance backlog is estimate to run into the tens of millions.