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Entrepreneur between barrier and highway
In the Netherlands, anyone who says barrier boxes, vehicle restraint gates and innovative traffic solutions quickly comes up with the name of Martin Nanninga. As founder and director of VEVACADO International, he is building international successes with a small but flexible consortium. But behind that businesslike facade also lies a clear vision of how the Dutch infrastructure world is developing - and where he believes there is room for improvement.
Anyone who speaks to Martin Nanninga notices it immediately: this is a man who loves business, but equally loves the craftsmanship behind his products. He combines entrepreneurship with technical common sense, and personal conviction with international ambition. His story begins with an unexpected move into the infrastructure sector, but culminates in a career that gives color to the Dutch civil engineering sector.
Until 2011, Nanninga had nothing to do with barrier boxes, tunnels or traffic safety. He himself calls that period his ‘reset phase. A good friend, Jelte Hoving of Rusthoven Machinefabriek, asked him to take a look at the barrier boxes, which at the time were mainly supplied as by-products with bridges. ’Actually, there was no real business model behind it,“ Nanninga says. ”They were products that just came with it, but without their own identity. There was an opportunity there.“
Together with colleague Oene Boer, he delved into the product, improved the design and brought standardization. It led to the founding of Rusthoven Verkeerstechniek, and not much later to a multi-million dollar contract in Norway: barrier boxes to upgrade two thousand tunnels to European safety standards. “That was the moment I discovered there was a market for a product that was often misunderstood worldwide,” he says.
After the sale of Jansen Venneboer to SPIE, Nanninga joined the multinational as sales manager. There he became responsible for selling VEVA® and CADO® systems that safely direct and regulate traffic at incidents or tunnel entrances. “The advantage was that I spoke to the same principals as I did with the barriers. That made it logical and efficient.”
When SPIE wanted to shift its focus to service activities, Nanninga saw his opportunity. He took over the product lines and started his own company in early 2025: VEVACADO International. “A carve-out of eight months, but since then we have had a company that is completely dedicated to product development and market approach.”
Nanninga deliberately chose a small organization, without a large staff. He works with three partners - a steel fabricator, a control cabinet builder and an assembly and installation company - who are also shareholders. “It's a consortium structure that allows me flexibility to scale up or down. If the order flow increases, I can easily scale up. But if a project is postponed - and that happens quite often in tunnel construction - I'm not stuck with dozens of people,” Nanninga explains.
That flexibility is paying off. While in the Netherlands the market consists largely of replacement, the growth opportunities lie mainly abroad: Scandinavia, Germany and Denmark, but also in the Middle East. There, the added value of fast lanes and safe lane separations is directly reflected in shorter traffic jams and greater road safety.
Anyone talking to Nanninga is quick to hear his outspoken views on the Dutch approach. He admires the thoroughness, but also sees the downside. “We have the most intelligent form of market protection in the Netherlands,” he says. “Standards like the VOBB ensure that foreign providers hardly stand a chance. But at the same time, they force us to build products that are in practice oversized.” He gives an example: a barrier box in the Netherlands must officially last 50 years and be capable of 500,000 movements. “In reality, such a cabinet is often replaced after 25 years. That discrepancy is actually absurd.” Still, he emphasizes that certification, such as the EN 1317 impact tests, remains crucial. “Without certification you are nowhere. It's like a driver's license: if you have it, no one asks if you can drive anymore.”
A recurring theme with Nanninga is standardization. He believes that products become truly scalable and reliable only when you leave customization behind. “We used to deliver some kind of prototype with every project. I don't want that anymore. Everything is now standardized: from the technical implementation to the quotation. That saves endless discussions and gives customers clarity.”
He would also like to see that philosophy applied more broadly in the GWW sector. “Why does every municipality need its own variant of a bridge or viaduct? Standardization would make maintenance easier, keep parts interchangeable and reduce costs. But there remains a tendency in the Netherlands to want a unique design everywhere. Ultimately, what matters to the road user is safety and flow, not aesthetic differences.”
Behind the down-to-earth numbers and technical details, Nanninga also has a personal conviction. He calls himself first and foremost a businessman, someone who derives pleasure from interaction. “Entrepreneurship is always a meeting of people. You can sit at the table on behalf of a large consortium, but ultimately your proposal has to connect with the person opposite you. That's where you make the difference.”
In the coming years, Nanninga wants to further expand VEVACADO abroad. Large tenders in Scandinavia and the Middle East are in the pipeline, and innovations lie mainly in smart control. “The hardware is largely developed out. The next step is in decision support from traffic centers and in cybersecurity. If you get that right, you can make a real difference in safety and traffic flow.”
With his consortium approach, international ambition and outspoken vision of the Dutch market, Martin Nanninga embodies the tension between tradition and innovation in the GWW sector. His message to the industry is clear: anyone who wants to build the infrastructure of the future must dare to standardize - and look beyond its borders.
