Indicator Fact Sheet

External costs of transport

Indicator Fact Sheet

Prod-ID: IND-175-en

Also known as: TERM 025

This is an old version, kept for reference only.

Go to latest version

Topics: Transport

This page was archived on 08 May 2015 with reason: No more updates will be done

Assessment made on 01 Nov 2004

Generic metadata

Classification

Topics:

Transport

DPSIR: Impact

Identification

Indicator codes

TERM 025

Contents

Policy issue: Estimate and reduce the external costs of transport

Figures

EU average marginal external costs and variable charges of freight transport (EUR/10 vehicle-km for road freight; EUR/vehicle-km for other modes)

Key assessment

External costs are difficult to estimate (see table 5), and there is currently no unique, commonly accepted methodology for estimating external costs. Results of international studies vary widely due to differences in statistics and normative choices underlying results, see CE 2003. External cost estimates range from 4 (ECMT, 1998b) to 8% (Infras, 2000) of GDP for the EU-15 countries to 14% of GDP for Central and Eastern Europe in 1995 (OECD, 2003). In figure 2 the distribution of marginal external costs over modes and cost components is shown.