Published on: December 7, 2025, 10:00 AM
Rijkswaterstaat collaborates with the market on the major renewal task. Many bridges, tunnels, locks, and roads from the 1950s and 1960s have reached the end of their lifespan and urgently need to be renewed.
To ensure the safety and accessibility of our infrastructure in the future, structural investments and intensive cooperation with market parties are necessary. The multi-year overview of the renewal task provides insight into the expected order flow for the period 2026 - 2030.
Multi-year overview
From discussions with the market and the Platform VenR (PV&R), part of the Taskforce Infra (TFI), the need arose for a multi-year overview from Rijkswaterstaat with assignments to be issued in the coming years within the framework of the renewal task.
Sipke Huitema, Technical Director (CTO) at VolkerWessels Infrastructure Netherlands and core team member of the PV&R: ‘As a market, we want predictable information in the medium and long term to determine our business roadmap, investments, and market proposition, and this overview helps with that.’
The added value of a long-term outlook is widely shared. Hans Dussel, Director of Procurement and Contract Management (Large Projects and Maintenance) at Rijkswaterstaat: ‘Predictability and clarity give market parties the opportunity to make strategic choices about whether or not to invest in a specific branch such as locks.’
‘In addition, a multi-year outlook offers opportunities for standardization and investments in professionals, processes, models, and AI support, so that we can realize much more work in the sector with the same people.’
National programming
As a starting point for drawing up the multi-year overview, we have started a national programming process, in which the data of the assets from regions have been merged.
Dussel: ‘In the past two years, Rijkswaterstaat has focused more on the asset management-based approach and programming has greatly improved. Therefore, we can now look several years ahead and provide insight into the order in which bridges, tunnels, and locks are tackled throughout the Netherlands.’
This has led to the multi-year overview renewal task 2026-2030 published on Monday, December 8, 2025. It provides a concise (financial) overview of the works to be contracted for bridges, tunnels, and locks, with the tenders for 2031 completed.
The overview is subdivided by object type and work types and also provides insight into expected order flow and turnover value for the coming five years. The overview complements the current procurement planning that we publish quarterly.
Predictability
The infra sector faces a changing environment. This plays an important role in the certainty of the projects to be executed. Dussel: ‘The overview gives the market a view of the longer term, whereby the further a bridge, tunnel, or lock lies in the future, the greater the reservation must be that it proceeds exactly as we now foresee.’
Material shortages, labor market scarcity, price increases, budget shortages, and tightening of laws and regulations are important factors. Huitema: ‘As a market, we know very well that there are uncertainties that can cause a project (ROK/NOK) to be delayed in time. It is certain that there are uncertainties. Dealing well with this is something we still have to experience together.’
On Monday, December 8, 2025, the report The State of Infra was also sent to the House of Representatives. It shows that we face a major maintenance task, but that current budgets are insufficient. The age of our infrastructure and todays requirements are incomparable to the time in which these networks were designed.
The maintenance backlog is much greater than the available budgets. If we want to keep the Netherlands safe, livable, and accessible, and contribute to the resilience of our country, infrastructure must be given a higher priority. It is time to tackle these problems constructively instead of the symptoms.
What next?
We intend to update the multi-year overview annually and possibly expand it. For this, intensive cooperation within the Platform VenR as part of the TFI will again be necessary. This is essential to provide an overview with which market parties and Rijkswaterstaat can best fulfill the renewal task.
