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Hundreds of thousands of people in the Netherlands with a low income are in the field of transport vulnerable in the energy transition. This is reported by the TNO research institute. These are households with a low income and who spend a relatively large amount of money on fuel for a car, for example because they live outside the city and have to travel many kilometers to work. They risk getting into financial problems if they have to switch to electronic driving.
According to the researchers, vulnerable people are relatively often single-parent families and single-person households who often live on the outskirts of a city, far from public transport. That is between 113,000 and 270,000 households, ANP reports. For example, if people on low incomes don’t have money for gas or have poor access to public transportation, they can’t get to work or visit people. According to the researchers, this can contribute to unemployment, poorer health or loneliness.
Between 73,000 and 175,000 people also have little money and public transport for these people is poorly accessible. That is why they are extra vulnerable, according to TNO. Exactly how many people are vulnerable depends, in addition to income, on how high fuel prices are.
TNO expects that vulnerable households will spend even more money on driving in the coming years. This is partly due to higher environmental taxes on fossil fuels such as gasoline and environmental zones in some municipalities. The group of vulnerable households uses 40 percent more fuel than the average Dutch household with their own car. An exact reason for this is not given by the researchers. Vulnerable people spend between 10 and 12 percent of their income on fuel, while people in the Netherlands spend an average of 4.5 percent of their income on fuel.
The government must take measures, otherwise inequality in mobility and accessibility will become even greater, according to TNO. For example, the researchers believe that the government should invest more in public transport, including better metro and tram connections on the edges of cities.
2024-02-14 00:33:45
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