Health costs of automobile pollution

Summary The methodology developed by the ExternE (« External Costs of Energy ) Project of the European Commission is used to estimate the health costs associated with air pollution due to tail pipe emissions from cars. The analysis begins with emissions data for several car types in the current fleet and for three driving sites: a trip in Paris, a trip from Paris to Lyon, and travel in the rural southwest of France. Atmospheric dispersion and chemistry is modeled, both at the local and the regional scale, including the formation of secondary pollutants (ozone as well as nitrate and sulfate aerosols). Health impacts are quantified using linear dose-response functions, based on a survey of the epidemiological literature. The economic valuation is based on the willingness-to-pay to avoid a harmful impact; of particular importance is the cost of a year of life lost (YOLL), here taken as 0.083 MEuro (derived from a « value of statistical lifeof 3.1 MEuro). Except for post 1997 gasoline cars whose emissions are very low, the resulting damage costs per km are not much smaller than the price of fuel, and the number of YOLL is comparable to the number lost by traffic accidents.