The advantages of railway freight transport are reconfirmed by specialists in the area who also consider, apart from the impact of traffic decongestion, the safety and efficiency of transport, the generated external costs, compared to the other transport modes.
Also, EC initiative pack, “Greening Transports” (2008) includes a strategy on the internalisation of external costs in transports, the general objective of the strategy being to guarantee that transport prices better reflect the real cost for society, so that the environmental damages and traffic congestion would be reduced in a way that would stimulate the efficiency of transport and economic development.
Added to the other EU policies, the latest strategy reflected in the contribution of sustainable transport for the development of stable economy, the White Paper on Transport, the internalisation of external costs is mentioned as one of the guidelines in transport policies.
Therefore, EC focuses on marginal costs as a basis of average and total cost-related information providing a full image of the impact of transport on the economy, especially in new member states (currently trying to transform their transport system) and on the development of a sustainable mobility.
Total external costs resulted from the EU’s transport sector (+Norway and Switzerland) amount to over EUR 500 Billion or 4% of the GDP (in 2008), the freight transport being responsible for 23% of costs. Moreover, the cost of road traffic annual congestion amounts to EUR 146-243 Billion (1 and 2% of the GDP). On modes of transport, “road transport is responsible for 93% of congestions, while railway transport for less than 2%”, shows the “External Costs of Transport in Europe” study.
There are four times more external costs from road and air freight transport than those generated by railway transport and the average of external costs for road transport is six times higher (including congestion).
Railway transport holds the lowest average of costs (7.9 euro/1000 t-km), for electric freight trains, costs being lower (6.6 euro/1000 t-km). The costs for inland waterways are slightly higher (11.2 euro per 1,000 t-km) which is 1.4 times more than for rail. The average costs for road transport 6.4 times higher than for rail, reaching costs of 50 euro per 100 t-km; the average costs for HDV (heavy duty vehicles) amount to 34.0 euro, for LDV (light duty vehicles) to 146 euro per 1,000 t-km. Therefore, the average costs of HDV are 4.3 times higher than for rail freight transport.
External costs calculated for each mode of transport concern accidents, pollution, air, climate change, noise and congestion. The most important cost category is accident costs with 44% of the total costs. Climate change costs (high scenario) contribute to 29% of the total costs, air pollution costs to 10% and noise costs only accounts for 4% of the total costs. Road transport is the predominant mode that causes by far most of the external costs.
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