PAYING OUR WAY: ESTIMATING MARGINAL SOCIAL COSTS OF FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION. NEW TRB REPORT

Eight hypothetical case studies developed by a National Research Council committee demonstrate that methods exist to gauge social costs and the extent to which shippers and carriers of surface freight pay them. The methods laid out in Special Report 246, "Paying Our Way: Estimating Marginal Social Costs of Freight Transportation" (Transportation Research Board, 1996), provide the federal government with a road map for making reliable assessments of subsidies, which are key to designing tax and regulatory policies that promote better use of the nation's transportation system. The study, sponsored by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program, the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Railroad Administration, the Maritime Administration, and the National Research Council's Transportation Research Board, focused on subsidies.