The Netherlands Ministry of Transport is increasingly faced with the question if co-operation with neighbouring countries is not a more effective policy than competing with them. Of course, in those domains where there are European or even world-wide agreements and directives, the choice for co-operation has already been made. But there are many fields of government intervention where a choice between competition and co-operation is still relevant, e.g. in the provision of infrastructure or the elaboration of regulations in a number of fields. The NL Ministry of Transport has commissioned ECORYS/NEI and Instituut Clingendael to do a pilot study into the way in which a trade-off can be made between competition and co-operation policies in the relevant fields. A decision model was developed, which can be applied to any issue of international transport policy, in order to determine if the best course for this issue is policy competition or policy co-operation. It is noteworthy that cost benefit analysis is an accepted instrument in the evaluation of infrastructure projects in many countries, but is rarely applied to international infrastructure. The study also looked at the practical experience of international negotiations in policy co-operation. Two case studies were done, one dealing with cross-border high-speed rail infrastructure and the other with international aviation policy. It is suggested that: policy co-operation on the Belgian and Dutch sea ports may be more advantageous than the present policy competition; policy co-operation with Germany on inland container terminals may be more advantageous than the present policy competition; and that policy co-operation may also be more advantageous in a number of cases where there are presently support measures for Dutch transport companies. For the covering abstract see ITRD E126595.
Abstract