2010-02: HGV pollution charging moves step closer
The overall benefit of charging HGVs for the pollution they cause outweighs the limited negative price impact on consumers, a new report from the European Commission’s in-house Joint Research Centre (JRC) has concluded.
The study was requested by EU ministers, who are currently seeking ways to break the deadlock over the Commission’s proposal to recast the EU Eurovignette Directive.
Peripheral countries like Ireland, Portugal, Malta, and the Baltic countries oppose the plans, as they fear that additional road charging would impose higher costs on their trade, while the EU’s central transit countries would get most of the financial benefit.
Member states like Italy, the Netherlands, Finland and Bulgaria are willing to accept congestion charges, provided that they are applied to passenger cars as well.
The aim of the JRC analysis was to calculate the cost for international transport operations of the proposed Eurovignette Directive.
The EU executive’s in-house research facility concluded that while the range of external cost charges for each corridor depends on the length of the corridor and the specific characteristics of the zones it crosses, the impact of the planned green charges on final product prices is “negligeable”.
The report argues that 20% to 30% of the total external cost charges can be absorbed by operators themselves “in the form of improved efficiency and/or technology”. Even if the total cost were passed on to the user of the transport services, “they would still have a very limited repercussion on final prices,” the report continues.
Meanwhile, the JRC’s calculations show that the introduction of Eurovignette would reduce CO2 emissions from road freight transport and fuel consumption by 8%, and that “if an average increase in transport costs of 3% is assumed, a decrease of 13.5 billion tonne kms in road transport volumes would be expected”.
JRC estimates suggest that the internalisation of road freight transport costs at EU level on Europe’s main roads would result in a total net welfare gain of EUR 1.8 billion per year. Extending congestion charging to passenger cars would increase the net welfare gain to a yearly EUR 2.3 billion.
