Report of the Ninety-Third Round Table on Transport Economics, held in Lyons on 30th June-1st July 1992 on the following topic : benefits of different transport modes.

106 Pages·1994·4.123 MB·English

by  OECD

ECONOMIC RESEARCH CENTRE
EUROPEAN CONFERENCE OF MINISTERS OF TRANSPORT
PARIS 1994
ECONOMIC RESEARCH CENTRE
REPORT OF THE
NINETY-THIRD ROUND TABLE
ON TRANSPORT ECONOMICS
held in Lyons on 30th June-1st July 1992
on the following topic:
BENEFITS OF DIFFERENT
TRANSPORT MODES
EUROPEAN CONFERENCE OF MINISTERS OF TRANSPORT
THEEUROPEAN CONFERENCE
OFMINISTERS OFTRANSPORT (ECMT)
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
GERMANY
WILLEKE, R(cid:9) 5
NETHERLANDS
SIMONS, J(cid:9) 39
SUMMARY OF DISCUSSIONS
(Round Table debate on reports) (cid:9) 83
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS (cid:9) 97
/

GERMANY
Professor Rainer WILLEKE
Koln University
Koln
Germany
/

SUMMARY
1. INTRODUCTION (cid:9) 9
1.1. The problem (cid:9) 9
1.2. The concepts (cid:9) 11
2. THE POSITION OF TRANSPORT AND THE TRANSPORT
MODES IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (cid:9) 13
3. THE MAIN PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
DIFFERENT TRANSPORT MODES (cid:9) 15
4. THE PERFORMANCE ADVANTAGES OF ROAD TRANSPORT . . 18
5. SOURCES OF EXTERNAL TRANSPORT BENEFITS (cid:9) 19
6. EXTERNAL BENEFITS OF ROAD TRANSPORT: CRITICISM
AND COUNTER-CRITICISM (cid:9) 21
7. INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL BENEFITS OF FREIGHT
TRANSPORT (cid:9) 25
8. INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL BENEFITS OF PASSENGER
TRANSPORT (cid:9) 27
9. CONCLUSION (cid:9) 29
10. SUMMARY (cid:9) 29
NOTES (cid:9) 32
BIBLIOGRAPHY (cid:9) 35
Koln, January 1992
7

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. The problem
To examine the benefits and advantages of transport and the different
transport modes is highly topical and relevant, but also somewhat unusual,
because the impetus for interest in the subject comes from the other side, that of
the private and social costs of transport. The explosive expansion of passenger
and freight transport has caused high and rising levels of disamenity and
environmental pollution wherever there is a substantial volume of transport
operations. At the same time, individual and political sensitivity to the nuisance
and damage caused by transport is growing. This has led to critical and
frequently hostile attitudes to transport and its further growth. In one economic
argument, this criticism often takes the form ofthe thesis that transport is simply
too cheap, because the provision oftransport services by no means takes account
ofall the costs and the polluteris not made to pay; the acceptance ofthe external
costs is a hidden subsidy to transport users and has artificially encouraged the
formation of transport-hungry settlement structures (suburbanisation) and
particularly transpor-intensive production and distribution systems (the
just-in-time concept).
Although the criticism of excessive waste of resources is often directed at
transport as a whole, and although major transport infrastructure projects of all
types come up against opposition, the critical attitude and accusations of
uncovered social costs are directed above all at road traffic and the internal
combustion engine. A whole series ofsocial cost calculations have tried to prove
quantitatively that motor traffic, both in absolute terms and relative to other
transport modes, causes particularly high social costs that are nowhere near
compensated for by special charges [1],
The methodological basisforsocial costcalculationsis still somewhat shaky,
however, and the results vary enormously. They nevertheless have increasing
influence on the transport policy debate and opinion-forming. The political and
scientific arguments over the methods and results ofsocial cost calculations have