NATO summit: from fears for traffic gridlock to a smooth operation

From Schiphol, the convoys travelled over a motorway that had been completely cleared of other traffic to The Hague, where the NATO summit took place. It was not merely the largest security operation carried out on Dutch territory; it was also the largest transport-related operation ever.

Rijkswaterstaat as crisis manager

Tessa Mulders is team lead of Rijkswaterstaat's crisis-management department and thus involved in the organisation of the NATO summit. Her team plans, manages and drafts scenarios for any crisis situation that might arise.

'Things like the threat of flooding, a large-scale power cut and military threats. In addition to threats of this kind, we are also involved in the organisation of crisis-sensitive events that could potentially have an impact on one of our networks.'

Crisis-sensitive events

These include King's Day, for instance, the national holiday when we celebrate the birthday of King Willem-Alexander with informal markets, music and parties throughout the country.

On King's Day in 2022, the king was given a guided tour of Maastricht. The day's programme included a cruise for the royal family on the Meuse. To do this, a section of the river had to be closed off.

'While preparing for such an event, we help to solve issues around things that could go wrong and who is responsible for handling them. We do all this in the 'cold phase', the stage before the event, so that we don't have to think about that during the event itself,' explains Mulders.

What does this mean for us?

As with King's Day, the NATO summit impinged on Rijkswaterstaat's territory. Rijkswaterstaat colleagues' preparatory work began in February 2024. "A lot was still unclear at that point. For instance, we couldn't be certain when it was going to take place. The first question we addressed was 'what will this mean for us?'"

'Our activities centred on road traffic, but were definitely not limited to that. We also devoted attention to communication on traffic problems, analyses and measures relating to cyber security. In addition, we got the areas we were responsible for in order, for instance by fixing malfunctions in traffic-management systems. Colleagues from throughout the organisation helped with this work.'

The preparations also included lessons learnt from the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit (NSS). 58 world leaders attended that meeting in The Hague, to discuss preventing nuclear threats. Rijkswaterstaat was also involved during this event.

Largest ever transport-related operation

Ultimately, Rijkswaterstaat drafted a single mobility plan, together with 33 other road managers. Three motorways were entirely or partially closed off during the summit, including all entry and exit slip-roads, viaducts, tunnels and parking spaces on and alongside these motorways to convey the government leaders safely to The Hague.

'That was a difficult decision. You have to weigh up the security of the delegations against preventing the emergency services from doing their job. These are, of course, both security-related aspects. But the closures also affected students who had to be at school on time for exams, buses that either could or couldn't operate on their normal route and the accessibility of towns and villages adjacent to the corridor. In the end, you have to strike a balance. We spent hours discussing this with various parties.'

To make the whole operation a success, Rijkswaterstaat erected a 6 km-long steel corridor on the A4, while 232 information panels, 4.450 road signs and 135 mobile messaging and traffic-control units were deployed. Twenty extra road inspectors were also stationed to respond rapidly to incidents.

Fears for gridlock

Once the wheels of the first government aircraft touched down on the runway at Schiphol, Mulders was in the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management crisis centre.

'We had been working towards this for so long, so it was only natural that we felt a little tension. What I really wanted to know was whether the lines of communication would work, how the corridor performed and whether people did, indeed, stay at home as per the travel advice.' The closure of three motorways in the busiest part of the Netherlands could easily have led to traffic coming to a complete halt. So the advice given to residents was to avoid the western part of the Netherlands and not to travel by road.

A flash poll revealed that over 90 per cent of people were aware of this but, at the same time, nearly three quarters of respondents said they did not intend to change their travel plans in the week of the NATO summit. "That just added to the tension. If both the primary and secondary road networks are at full capacity, all traffic will grind to a halt. We arranged a media barrage with the message 'Do not use the road!'"

Smooth operation

As it turned out, the traffic kept flowing and the NATO summit proceeded without a hitch. 'We were very happy with the last-minute adjustment in road users' behaviour. This meant that traffic volumes were manageable. We had to work very hard ourselves, for example due to the fire that disrupted train services between Schiphol and Amsterdam.

We really had to stop and think what this meant for us and the NATO summit. Would people take the car rather than the train as a result? Slightly unexpected things happened every day that didn't so much have an impact on the summit, but nevertheless kept us very busy behind the scenes.'

Once the summit was over, the protective corridor was removed from the A4 earlier than expected, so that the other affected motorways could reopen. Mulders can look back on the operation with a sense of satisfaction.

'I'm really proud of everyone, from the preparatory stage to the operation itself. So many colleagues from various departments have made their contribution, from road traffic to cyber security, from communications to physical security and crisis management. It was a large-scale, demanding operation, involving over four hundred of our colleagues, so everyone can be really proud of that. We're all very glad that it went as well as it did.'