Reforming Transport Pricing in the European Union: A Modelling Approach

This timely book deals with the problem of pricing passenger and freight transportation within Europe. The contributors argue that current legislation affecting pricing and regulation is increasingly less successful in dealing with market failures and externalities such as congestion, air pollution, noise and accidents. Technological progress and greater European co-operation has brought increased scope for the reform of transport policies.

Reforming Transport Pricing in the European Union includes an economic diagnosis of the pricing problem, proposals for new pricing and regulation structures together with a quantified assessment of the likely impact for several European cities and countries. The effects of traffic volume, cost, and overall economic welfare are computed for all forms of passenger and freight transport in urban and non-urban areas. The book analyses various alternative policies including combinations of higher fuel excise, alternative parking policies, cordon pricing, electronic road pricing and emissions regulation. The research is based on a set of formal models which facilitate the analysis and comparison of results.

The range of policies studied and the variety of methodologies employed, will ensure that this book will be of great benefit to European and national transport policymakers, transport economists and transport consultants.

Edited by Bruno De Borger, Professor of Economics, University of Antwerp, Belgium and Stef Proost, Professor of Environmental and Transport Economics, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium