The A10 beltway is part of the highway system around Amsterdam. In the summer of 2001, a major maintenance project was carried out on the western part of the A10. Since this highway is one of the busiest and most heavily congested highways in the Netherlands, it was expected that as a result of this maintenance project major problems would occur. In fact, some people expected complete chaos. However, it appeared that in reality this chaos did not occur. In fact, congestion was much lower than usual, and there were far less accidents. The maintenance project was thoroughly prepared. All major parties were involved and the Dutch Traffic Management Architecture was used as a guide. During the project a set of measures was taken, such as a massive information campaign and a general speed limit of 70 km/h. Currently, the obvious question is what the exact reasons were why the chaos did not occur. Without knowledge of the preparation process, this looks like a miracle. On the basis of this miracle, people conclude that the measures were successful and recommend to apply them everywhere. But was not the process the key to this success? Therefore, maybe the absence of chaos is just a matter of reason. May it be concluded that all measures were really that successful and have to be applied everywhere? Maybe it is better to await the results of the evaluation studies which are being carried out at this moment. (A) For the covering abstract of the conference see ITRD E206647.
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