LORRY TRACK AND ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS - A REPORT FOR DETR

This report presents the results of Phase 2 of a study into lorry track, environmental and other costs. This study has been co-ordinated by National Economic Research Associates (NERA), and has also involved AEA Technology Environment, the TRL and Heriot-Watt University. The Phase 1 study, in 1998, consisted of two separate, but closely co-ordinated projects led by NERA (dealing primarily with track costs) and by AEA Technology (dealing primarily with environmental costs). Following completion of the Phase 1 work in January 1999, DETR invited further work to develop the approach. TRL's highway and vehicle engineering skills were used to assess the methods used to estimate track costs and allocate them to different vehicles. In this project TRL have reviewed the impact of long-life pavements, and have also provided estimates of optimal long-run maintenance expenditures over the different parts of the English road network. They have also provided preliminary advice on the costs of bridges and the ways in which the costs of bridges should be allocated to particular vehicles. TRL have then considered a range of important issues affecting the extent to which HGVs contribute to road damage: the measurement of standard axles; the impact of road-friendly-suspension; the wear caused by wide single tyres; the impact of lifted axles; the effect of axle configuration, as experienced in other countries; the way in which allocation rules might be varied according to the type of road; and the implications of the use of PCU values in road track cost allocation. AEA Technology have considerably expanded the model's coverage of environmental costs, extending the model to include not only NOx, PM10s and carbon dioxide, but also hydrocarbons (NMVOCs), carbon monoxide, benzene, butadiene, and sulphur dioxide. Monetary valuations are applied to these emission rates to identify health and non-health impacts. In addition the model includes estimates of noise costs associated with HGVs. The Phase 1 model has been extended and converted into an Access database. Chapters 2 to 6 describe the development and results of the model. Chapter 7 presents a separate analysis of road haulage vehicle taxation in selected EU Member States. The detailed contents of the chapters are as follows: Chapter 2 provides an overall description of the main features of the HGV model; Chapter 3 presents TRL's work on long-life pavements, optimal maintenance, and the costs of bridges; Chapter 4 consists of TRL's analyses of relevant factors determining track cost allocation rules for HGVs; Chapter 5 describes the methods used by AEA Technology to measure and cost atmospheric emissions from goods vehicles, and the noise created by goods vehicles; Chapter 6 presents the results from running the model to estimate track, and environmental costs of HGVs in 1998. These results need to be interpreted in the light of the assumptions made to derive them; Chapter 7 reviews annual licence and other fees for goods vehicles in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden; Appendix A explains how estimated accident costs per vehicle km for HGVs on different types of road were estimated; Appendix B is a brief review of issues related to congestion costs imposed by HGVs; Other appendices provide more deatiled statistics on material in chapters 3, 5 and 7. (A)