The European Union-funded project SYNCHROMODE is helping improve multimodal traffic management across the Netherlands during the 2025 spring and summer season!
Following extensive preparation with all stakeholders in the South Holland and North Holland area, the project deployed the SYNCHROMODE Toolbox, a suite of tools designed to manage traffic more effectively across the network, starting with the spring tulip season at Keukenhof, and continuing during the summer in the popular coastal towns of Noordwijk and Hoek van Holland (near Rotterdam).
Keukenhof, a popular tourist destination, receives approximately 1.4 million visitors during its eight-week tulip season. On peak days, particularly during favourable weather conditions and public holidays such as Easter, daily visitor numbers can reach up to 40,000!
In order to prevent excessive travel times or gridlock, traffic management can help mitigate these risks. SYNCHROMODE provided support for Keukenhof and partners (Zuid-Holland Bereikbaar, Provincie Zuid-Holland, Provincie Noord-Holland, TMC ‘Regiodesk’, Rijkswaterstaat and municipalities HLT-samen and Haarlemmermeer) through a cooperative dashboard and traffic management support tool. This tool enables stakeholders to monitor real-time and predicted transport and traffic conditions, thereby assisting stakeholders in operational decision-making. The projects’ support included:
A key improvement was the introduction of a shared traffic dashboard, accessible to all stakeholders and projected daily on a large screen at Keukenhof. This facilitated a unified view of the traffic network, enhancing situational awareness and coordination.
In addition, the daily reports provided valuable insights into traffic conditions and anomalies, offering a foundation for future development into strategic management reporting.
During the tulip season, approximately 18.000 on-trip and 13.000 post-trip notifications were disseminated via the Flitsmeister app. Despite challenges such as limited training data, resulting from the short seasonal duration, changes in ticketing procedures, and disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the short-term prediction was recalibrated multiple times and ultimately delivered promising results. An updated version of the model is currently being considered for deployment in the 2026 season.
Lessons learned from the 2025 season highlight the need for more direct and timely communication regarding scenario activation from the Traffic Management Centre (TMC). Additionally, the development of a handheld version of the Common Operational Picture is considered a valuable enhancement to support field operations and improve situational awareness.
Following the spring season, the solutions were adapted for use in the coastal municipalities of Noordwijk and Hoek van Holland during the summer. Efforts were primarily focused on informing drivers about parking routes and the availability of the Beach Shuttle in Noordwijk (P+R near the N206) using the Flitsmeister application. In Noordwijk, the objective was to train a midterm prediction model (up to 5 days in advance) based on parking data from ten monitored locations, weather forecast, day-of-week patterns, public holidays, and local events. The aim was to forecast high-traffic days and enable preemptive measures, such as scheduling additional public transport services and extending Beach Shuttle operations. However, the real-time parking data stream was unavailable during the summer season. As an alternative, travel times on three main access routes to the beach were used to train the model.
Flowcontrol was employed to provide on-trip parking guidance and Beach Shuttle information to Flitsmeister users in Noordwijk aan Zee. In total, approximately 45.000 parking guidance messages and 49.000 Beach Shuttle notifications were delivered. In Hoek van Holland, SYNCHROMODE is supporting the setup of parking guidance during the activation of beach scenarios using the MobiMaestro – VM-iVRA notification chain.
In conclusion, the SYNCHROMODE project has shown the value of collaborative, data-driven approaches to multimodal traffic management. The tools and insights developed during the spring and summer of 2025 provide a solid foundation for further refinement and wider application in future operations. With continued stakeholder engagement and technical improvements, SYNCHROMODE is well-positioned to support increasingly complex mobility challenges in the coming years!
