Internalisation of Transport Externalities

Assess the degree of the implementation of the ‘user pays’ and the ‘polluter pays’ principles in the transport field in the EU Member States and other developed countries

The objective of the study is to assess the extent to which the “user pays” and the “polluter pays” principles are implemented in the transport field. This allows the European Commission to observe the progress of Member States towards the goal of full internalisation of external and infrastructure costs of transport and to identify options for further internalisation.

This study is an update of previous studies published in the years 2019 and 2014. The scope of the current study is extended to cover all external costs, all transport modes and, geographically, EU27 plus UK, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, Western Balkans, Iceland, USA (2 States), Canada (2 provinces), Japan, Australia, New Zealand.

Specific objectives concern:

• 

  Handbook of External costs 2024 – Modes and External cost categories

  Provide estimations of total, average and marginal infrastructure and external costs for all relevant modes/vehicle categories and countries.

• Provide a detailed and transparent overview of the transport-related taxes and charges, including their structure and revenues, for all relevant modes/vehicle categories and countries.
• Assess the application for the different transport modes in the relevant countries of both the user-pays and polluter-pays principles.
• The update of the Handbook on External costs

The objectives of the study are achieved through a comprehensive data collection on infrastructure costs (i.e., investment, renewal and operating), transport charges, earmarking of tax revenues and user charges. Appropriate methodologies are applied to estimate external costs for all modes and categories.

With regard to the activities of the study, TRT (already involved in previous studies) is responsible for:

1. developing estimates of the external costs related to congestion for all transport modes,
2. developing estimates of infrastructure costs for rail mode and with regard to all categories of external costs
3. elaborating the analysis of six case studies on intermodal freight terminals, and
4. supporting data collection, as country expert for Italy, France, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania.

For more information, check our previous study on Sustainable Transport Infrastructure Charging and Internalisation of Transport Externalities