TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORTATION
OECD International Conference, Vancouver Canada

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Session 2b - Barriers and Roadblocks

Abstract of address by Lars Hansson

Towards Sustainable Transportation - Going from Mere Words to Practice

In the last few years, there have been many documents and frameworks for a transport policy based on sustainable transportation. Although there is extensive knowledge pertaining to fiscal and economic incentives, and political will exists, there is inertia in the implementation of measures adequate for coping with the external effects of transportation. One explanation for the delay used to be that it is not possible to accurately determine how much should be charged. However, there is enough knowledge on the costs and evaluations of external effects to introduce a formal transport policy based on the polluter pays principle. The explicit evaluations of social and external costs for traffic accidents, air pollution and noise officially recommended by the Swedish Institute for Transport Analysis (under the Department of Transportation) show the total social costs for road traffic amounts to 4.3% of GNP. The external costs amount to 2.4% of GNP. In relation to passenger kilometres and tonne-Kilometres, the external effects of road traffic are 10-15 times that of rail traffic.

Even if sufficient knowledge exists about the costs and evaluations of external effects in transportation, there is still another major reason for the policy-making inertia. For example, it is difficult to gain acceptance from the public about increasing petrol taxes. It is necessary to consider the following:

• The externality charges must be explicit. The current petrol tax must be substituted for a more differentiated system including a traffic accident charge, an air pollution charge, etc.
• The externality charges must be distinguished from taxes. When the external effects are reduced, the charges must be reduced accordingly.
• These charges must be generally adopted, not only implemented for transportation.
• The revenues should not be treated as general tax revenues to allow for more tax neutrality(based on the "club theory" approach) and a stronger correlation between the political objectives of the eternality charges and the subsequent use of the revenues (direct and indirect compensations for the external costs, ecology funds, R&D, etc.).

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