Towards fair and efficient pricing in transport

European Commission Secretariat-General

Description

Policy options for internalizing the external costs of transport in the European Union
Transport policy

Sujets

• Transport in Europe

Informations

• Publié par: EUROPEAN-COMMISSION-SECRETARIAT-GENERAL
• Nombre de lectures: 11
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Supplement 2/96
Towards fair and efficient pricing
in transport
Policy options for internalizing the
external costs of transport in the
European Union Supplements 1996
1/96 The Commission's programme for 1996
Presentation to the European Parliament by Commission President
Jacques Santer
Resolution of the European Parliament on the programme for 1996
2/96 Towards fair and efficient pricing in transport
Policy options for internalizing the external costs of transport
in the European Union — Green Paper Bulletin
of the European Union
Supplement 2/96
Towards fair and efficient pricing
in transport
Policy options for internalizing the external costs
of transport in the European Union
Green Paper
Document drawn up on the basis of COM(95) 691 final
European Commission Cataloguing data can be found at the end of this publication
Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 1996
ISBN 92-827-7012-5
© ECSC-EC-EAEC, Brussels · Luxembourg, 1996
Reproduction is authorized, except for commercial purposes, provided the source
is acknowledged
Printed in Belgium Foreword
Congestion in major cities is now so heavy in rush hour that it often takes
longer to travel across town than it took to make the equivalent journey
by horse-drawn carriage at the turn of the century. Traffic jams are
beginning seriously to undermine the proper functioning of Europe's
transport system — an extremely worrying state of affairs given that an
efficient transport system is a major contributor to economic growth,
competitiveness and employment. The seriousness of environmental and
accident problems caused by transport has also become more and more
evident and although significant improvements have been achieved in
certain areas, there is a growing realization that, on current policies alone,
transport trends are unsustainable.
It is clear that a comprehensive policy response is needed to deal with this
situation. Infrastructure investments have a major role to play and
technical standards still have significant scope for furthering the environ­
mental performance of all means of transport. Improvements in the
functioning of railways, inland waterways and short sea shipping are also
required: the completion of the internal market in these modes is of key
importance. R&D activities are another ingredient to stimulate the
introduction of safe, clean and efficient technologies.
This Green Paper looks at pricing, which, I believe, is an essential
element of the required policy mix. The approach marks a change in
focus because transporty has until now concentrated largely on
direct regulation. Whilst regulation at the European level has brought
significant improvements and will continue to be required in many cases,
pricing can deal more effectively with the differentiation of transport
problems across space and in time in the Union. I therefore believe that a
gradual rebalancing of transport policy is needed to promote, over time,
the introduction of a fair and efficient pricing system.
This is essential since transport choices are influenced by prices and there
is evidence that in many instances the price to the individual traveller of
making a particular trip is not related to the real costs of that trip in terms
of the damage done to infrastructure, the environment, accident costs or
delays imposed on others. The result is that transport choices become
distorted. Where charges are too high, too few journeys are made; where
they are too low, people make journeys of which the costs to society are
larger than the benefits to individual travellers. As a result, the transport
system becomes increasingly inefficient and the pricing system unfair
because part of the costs are met by others or by society as a whole.
Consequently, the Green Paper is motivated by the effort to develop
practical means for effectively relating the price of transport use to the
cost of that use in order to give consumers and othert users an
incentive to curb the overall costs of transport. It is therefore about better
pricing, not higher taxation. In this task, I consider transparency and
effectiveness to be of the highest importance, and fairness and accounta­
bility to be essential.
S. 2/96 It is clear that implementing these principles in practice could imply
important changes in transport policies and patterns. Consequently, I
believe that a thorough discussion is needed to prepare carefully the
development of future initiatives.
That is the reason why I have presented this Green Paper—a discussion
document—and I would like comments and ideas from travellers and
transport practitioners of all kinds and from all Member States of our
Union.
NEIL KINNOCK
Member of the European Commission
S. 2/96 Contents
Executive summary 9
1 — Introduction 13
1.1. Need for policy action
1.2. The need to rebalance the policy strategy 1
1.3. Objective and outline of this paper5
2 — The externalities of transport6
2.1. What are transport externalities?
2.2. Why do externalities matter?7
2.3. How can transport be reduced? 1
2.4. can externalities be measured?8
2.5. What are the main transport externalities?
3 — Instruments to curb transport externalities9
3.1. Criteria for selecting intruments 1
3.2. Market-based instruments and regulation
4 — Infrastructure costs and congestion 21
4.1. Why do infrastructure and congestion costs matter?
4.2. Measuring and charging for infrastructure costs
4.2.1. What are infrastructure costs?
4.2.2. How should we charge for infrastructure costs? 22
4.3. Congestion costs: nature, size and charging 23
4.4. charging, efficient infrastructure policies and
recovering infrastructure costs 25
4.5. How are we charging for and congestion costs
now? 26
4.5.1. Charging systems
4.5.2. Infrastructure cost recovery: road, rail and inland waterways 27
4.6. Charging for road infrastructure and congestion costs: policy
conclusions8
4.6.1. The long run
4.6.2. The short and the medium run 29
5 — Transport accidents 31
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Regulatory policies have brought down accidents considerably 3
5.3. The cost of road to the Union2
5.4. Possible economic instruments to bring costs closer to users 3
5.5. Road accident insurance in the Union 33
5.6. Towards fair and efficient pricing for accidents4
5.7. Policy conclusions 3
S. 2/96 6 — Air pollution from transport 36
6.1. Emissions from transport: levels and trends
6.2. The costs of air pollution7
6.3. The current policy approach: scope and limits of regulation 38
6.3.1. The current policy approach
6.3.2. Limits of the current policy approach: differentiated causes
and effects of air pollution across Europe 38
6.4. Reducing emissions from transport: leverage points9
6.5. Economic instruments as a complement to the existing regulatory
approach 40
6.5.1. Further progress towards bringing air pollution costs closer
to users
6.6. Policy conclusions1
7 — Noise3
7.1. Introduction
7.2. Existing legislation has only been a mixed success 4
7.3. The costs of the transport noise problem4
7.4. Economic instruments
7.5. Policy conclusions 45
8 — Transport externalities: Costs and policy options 46
8.1. Summary of the available evidence on external costs
8.2. Cost internalization as an essential component of a transport
strategy8
8.2.1. Equity considerations 51
8.2.2. Competitiveness and employment 5
8.3. Phasing in policy instruments: priorities3
9 — The Community dimension6
9.1. When and why is EU intervention needed?
9.2. Next steps 58
10 — Final points9
References 61
Annexes
Annex 1 — Effectiveness of a price-based approach to solving transport
problems5
Annex 2 — The monetary valuation of external costs 6
Annex 3 — Criteria for selecting policy instruments to curb transport
externalities 71
Annex 4 — Electronic fee collection systems 73
Annex 5 — Road expenditure, taxation and damage costs
Annex 6 — Road accident statistics7
Annex 7 — External accident costs8
S. 2/96 Annex 8 — Leverage points for reducing air pollutant emissions from
road transport 79
Annex 9 InternalizationappliedtoN0X emissions from cars.The
cost-effectivenessofdifferent fiscal instruments80
Annex 10 Estimatesofexternalcosts 82
Annex 11 List of studies to be launched 83
■■:■■
* *
List of tables
Table J — Rough estimates of the external costs of transport 14
Table 2 — Classification of the costs of transport 16
Table 3 — Costs of congestion in UnitedKingdom24
Table 4 — Road taxes applied in the EuropeanUnion27
Table 5 — Transport fatalities, casualitiesandaccidentrisks in the
European Union by mode 31
Table 6 — Specific emissionsbymode37
Table 7 — External cost oftransport—excluding congestion 46
Table 8 — Road taxation andexternalcosts,France 199147
Table 9 — External costsinBrussels,200550
Table 10 — Possible policy instruments for efficient and equitable
pricing 54
Table 11—UpcomingEU policy initiatives relevant to making more
progressoncost internalization