Following the recent press coverage and the announcement of the decision of Minister Somers regarding the complaint on the municipality decision in Bonheiden, we would like to clarify a few things mentioned in the TaaS concession agreement according to the spirit of the agreement.

As a service provider of mobility solutions for local governments, we welcome the Minister's position and clarification, as it confirms that a local government may and can choose to enter into a private-public partnership to maintain road safety.

The TaaS concept came into being at the end of 2020 at the request of a number of local governments, which themselves were asking for such a private-public cooperation. The draft agreement that was drawn up for this purpose was drafted at the end of 2020 with the market knowledge and insights available at the time, based on feedback from the municipalities. We conceived the agreement in good faith and always tried to represent the interests of both parties. In the far-reaching discussions with some 50 municipalities in the past year, the TaaS concept and the concession agreement were received very enthusiastically.

As a TaaS, we provide a service to municipalities to increase their road safety through section controls. In addition to the wide range of other means such as speed bumps, traffic inhibitors, axle shifts, signalization, sensitization, ... this is an additional way for a municipality to increase and maintain road safety.

Minister Somers' press release states that the agreement between TaaS and the local government apparently "gives the impression that the autonomous power of the municipality to autonomously conduct its mobility policy is being curtailed."

To clarify that this was never the intention, the paragraphs regarding the introduction of barriers without prior consultation on the route are deleted from the concession agreement.

The road authority remains solely responsible for the design of the road. Local autonomy and traffic safety must always come first.

In short, based on good agreements between both parties, we wish to enable traffic enforcement and thereby increase traffic safety on the territory of the municipality.