Environmental External Costs of Transport

Transport is very important for the economy and our welfare. However, transport also causes a lot of problems, including air pollution. Such problems should be taken into account, when making decisions. A prerequisite for doing so is, that the impacts are known, quantitatively measured and allocated to the different activities in transport. Furthermore, they should be transformed into monetary units to be used as a basis for cost-benefit analyses or as an aid for setting taxes and charges, that reflect the external costs. This book describes a methodology for calculating impacts of transport activities and external costs caused by air pollution and presents numerous applications of this methodology for different transport technologies, locations and policy case studies. The approach has been developed and results have been calculated within the research project 'ExternE Core/Transport', financed to a large extent by the European Commission, Directorate General Research. We would like to thank especially Pierre Vallette and Pekka Jarviletho from the EC for their advice and support. A considerable number of experts with expertise in the different disciplines of this highly interdisciplinary work contributed to this book. The editors would like to thank the authors (see list on p. XV) for their contributions; it is especially remarkable, that the authors helped to make this book an integrated whole instead of a number of independent contributions.

Transport causes a wide range of damage to human health, ecosystems and materials. This damage should be taken into account when making decisions, i.e. it should be reflected in the prices for transport. The damagae caused by cars, planes, ships and trains should be calculated and transformed into monetary values - so called external costs. In this book we endeavour to evaluate the external costs stemming from the emissions of atmospheric pollutants caused by transport, including damage from greenhouse gases, fine particles, ozone, nitrous oxides and benzene as well as other carciogenic substances, so as to be able to calculate the external costs of a huge number of current and future modes of transport operating in different locations all over Europe. The results offer an important basis for assessing modes of transport, discussing transport taxes and charges and implementing green accounting.