In this paper forty-two scenarios of future transport and traffic development in the Netherlands have been investigated.These scenarios stem from the period 1970-2000. In this paper trend scenarios also known as "business as usual scenarios" or reference scenarios, have been analysed.These scenarios have two purposes: to indicate future problems for policy and to test new policy. The main research questions in this paper are: Did these scenarios effectively indicate future problems ? And what can we learn from development of scenarios in the past ? The main conclusion is that traffic and transport scenarios indicated problems reasonably effectively, especially the more recent scenarios from the eighties and nineties. Some of these scenarios were flawed, but generally speaking these scenarios effectively estimated the extent of future developments. These scenarios did not mislead policy makers. The main exceptions seem to be the scenarios for traffic jams, because these scenarios all underestimated the problems that were faced. (Author/publisher)
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