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Artículo creado dentro del estudio Internalización de las Medidas y políticas para todos los costes externos producidos por el transporte (IMPACT)

La internalización de los costes del trnasporte: las políticas subyacentes

Las actividades del transporte conllevan impactos ambientales, acidentes y congestión. En contra de lo que sucede con los beneficios, el coste de estos efectos no se traslada a los usuarios de este trnansporte. Sin una interención política, estos llamados costes externos no se tienen en cuenta por los usuarios de trnasporte cuando se toman las decionses de trnasporte. Los usuarios del trasnporte toman iniciativas incorrectas que les llevan a perdidas económicas.

contribuyen a los impactos ambientalesTransport activities give rise to environmental impacts, accidents and congestion. In contrast to the benefits, the costs of these effects of transport are generally not borne by the transport users. Without policy intervention, these so called external costs are not taken into account by the transport users when they make a transport decision. Transport users are thus faced with incorrect incentives, leading to welfare losses.

The internalisation of external costs means making such effects part of the decision making process of transport users. According to the welfare theory approach, internalisation of external costs by market-based instruments may lead to a more efficient use of Infrastructure, reduce the negative side effects of transport activity and improve the fairness between transport users.

Internalisation of external cost of transport has been an important issue for transport research and policy development for many years in Europe and worldwide. A substantial amount of research projects, including with support of the European Commission, suggest that implementing market-based instruments inspired by the economic theoretical concept of marginal social cost pricing could yield considerable benefits. Fair and efficient transport pricing has also been advocated in a number of policy document issued by the European Commission, notably the 2006 mid-term review of the White paper on the European Transport Policy.

When amending Directive 1999/62/EC on charging heavy duty vehicles for the use of certain Infrastructure, the EU legislator requested the European Commission to present a general applicable, transparent and comprehensible model for the assessment of all external costs (including those caused by non-road modes). This model is to serve as a basis for future calculations of Infrastructure charges. The model must be accompanied by an impact analysis on the internalisation of external costs for all modes of transport, a strategy for stepwise implementation and where appropriate a legislative proposal to further review the Eurovignette Directive.

The IMPACT study

In the light of this mandate from the EU legislator, the European Commission has commissioned the IMPACT study in order to summarise the existing scientific and practitioner’s knowledge. The central aim of the study is to provide a comprehensive overview of approaches for estimation and internalisation of external cost and to recommend a set of methods and default values for estimating external costs when conceiving and implementing transport pricing policy and schemes. The study also provide technical support to the Commission services to carry out an Impact Assessment of strategies to internalise transport external costs.

Handbook on external cost

This Handbook presents the state of the art and best practice on external cost estimation to make this accessible for those who are not familiar with the issue. It covers all environmental, accident and congestion costs and considers all transport modes. The focus is on marginal external costs of transport activity as a basis for the definition of internalisation policies such as efficient pricing schemes. The handbook does not include information on the existing taxes and charges and does not include information on Infrastructure costs.

The handbook is based on the existing scientific and expert work mainly done at EU level and within European countries. It has been reviewed by a panel of more than thirty experts, including experts who were designated by Member States.

The handbook recommends:

- Methods for calculating external cost figures.

- Best available input values for such calculation (e.g. value of one life year lost).

- Estimated default unit values of external cost for different traffic situations (e.g. air pollution cost of a vehicle in Euro per kilometre).

Methods for estimating external costs

Although the estimation of external costs have to consider several uncertainties, there is a wide consensus on the major methodological issues. The best practice estimation of congestion costs is based on speed-flow relations, value of time and demand elasticities. For air pollution and noise costs, the impact pathway approach is broadly acknowledged as the preferred approach, using Values of Statistical Life based on Willingness to Pay. Marginal accident cost can be estimated by the risk elasticity approach, also using Values of Statistical Life. Given long-term reduction targets for CO2 emissions, the avoidance cost approach is the best practice for estimating climate cost. Other external costs exist, e.g. costs related to energy dependency, but there is for the time being no scientific consensus on the methods to value them.

Available input values and EU default unit values

It is concluded that external costs of transport activities depend strongly on parameters like location (urban, interurban), time of the day (peak, off-peak, night) as well as on vehicle characteristics (EURO standards). Within the same Member State, the cost of one lorry kilometre in urban areas at peak hour can be at least five times higher than the cost of an interurban kilometre by the same vehicle at off-peak time.

The handbook provides typical European and Member State input values, based on the literature assessment made by the study. These input values can be used to produce own output values, with relatively high level of accurateness. Alternatively, the output values provided for each cost category can be used directly, considering the value transfer approach proposed. These values have lower accuracy, but still provide reliable bandwidths and could be used for policy purposes.