[sustran] "External costs" in transport: EU Commission prepares the ground for efficient and fair pricing of transport services

[Markus Heller]

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/54&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

"External costs" in transport: Commission prepares the ground for efficient
and fair pricing of transport services

The European Commission has released a comprehensive compilation of existing
studies on external costs in the transport sector. This handbook, jointly
prepared by several transport research institutes, summarises the state of
the art as regards the valuation of external costs. The Commission intends
to make use of the handbook as one element which prepares the communication
on the internalisation of external costs for all modes of transport that is
due in June 2008 and a proposal to revise the directive on the charging of
heavy goods vehicles.

The handbook assembles best practice methods to estimate and monetize the
external costs generated by transport activities. It concentrates on air
pollution, noise, climate change, congestion and accidents in road transport
which constitutes the overwhelming share of transport external costs, but it
also considers other external costs and other modes of transport. It brings
together the key parameters to apply these methods as well as examples of
unit values per travelled distance according to typical traffic situations,
as for instance air pollution cost of a lorry in an urban area. The handbook
will help policy makers and other interested parties value external costs
when developing policy measures for internalisation. It shows that external
costs depend strongly on parameters like vehicle characteristics (EURO
standards), location (urban or interurban) and the period of time (peak,
off-peak and night time).

The handbook was compiled by a consortium of research institutes from
different countries and its content commits solely their authors. This
release is part of the process launched by the Commission to prepare a
communication on a strategy for the stepwise integration of the external
costs into the price to be paid for transport services, as requested under
the directive on the charging for heavy goods vehicles. As part of this
process, technical workshops were held with industry representatives,
environmental organisations and scientific experts. The preliminary findings
of this handbook were subject to a peer review by scientific experts from
member States.

In parallel, a broad public consultation was organised by the Commission
services on possible ways to internalise these external costs. The results
of this public consultation, which ended in December 2007, will be presented
and discussed at a High Level stakeholders' conference on 31.1.2008 with the
participation of Commission Vice-President Jacques Barrot.

Both the handbook and the consultation paper are available at:
http://ec.europa.eu/transport/road/policy/index_en.htm
http://ec.europa.eu/transport/white_paper/consultations/index_en.htm

> http://ec.europa.eu/transport/costs/handbook/index_en.htm

download (4494 Kb)
Internalisation Measures and Policies for All external Cost of Transport
(IMPACT)
http://ec.europa.eu/transport/costs/handbook/doc/2008_01_15_handbook_external_cost_en.pdf

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Markus
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