Drinking water supply, mobility, communications and energy are critical for the functioning of contemporary society. Without these services all modern societies would collapse, as major energy blackouts and train accidents often remind us. Equally indispensable are the infrastructures that enable the protection against flooding, that facilitate electronic communications and transport by road, rail and air.

The efficiency of the entire economy is heavily influenced by the effectiveness, quality and universality of these infrastructures. They are priority factors in locational decisions for investment by firms in many industries. The effects of efficiency and universality ripple throughout the economy and society in a manner that multiplies their direct impact many times. Because of their core functions, infrastructures and the services they deliver (also referred to as public utility services) have been treated differently from other sectors of industry and have not been simply left to market forces.

Core infrastructures have become truly critical infrastructures – in the sense that they are key to continued societal and economic security and well-being in the face of external threats. Such external threats may be brought about by factors such as a growing dependence on external natural resources and terrorist threats. Indeed, these threats are increasingly recognised by policy makers both at the European and the national level. At the same time, infrastructures are also seen as the key to a successful transition towards a low-carbon sustainable future for most of the world's economies. The Netherlands, with its heavy reliance on (increasingly imported) gas and coal, its overcrowded roads, railways and airports and its ambitions to become a knowledge intensive society, is no exception. In addition there is the need to adjust the Dutch flood protection, its water management and spatial planning to the challenges of sea level rising and increasingly violent run-off of rivers. The costs of transition to a sustainable future are both uncertain, as well as enormous in monetary terms (Euro 2 billion a year in the near future, according to the Energy Transition Platform). Thus, system innovation is necessary in various infrastructures. In others, maintenance will require substantial investments in the future.

Why this report: From a ‘Type I’ to a ‘Type II’-strategy

Over the last two decades most infrastructures have been subject to significant regime change, which led to more emphasis being put on service delivery, lower prices and enhanced consumer choice, together with a greater concern for efficiency.