CORDIS proporciona enlaces a los documentos públicos y las publicaciones de los proyectos de los programas marco HORIZONTE.
Los enlaces a los documentos y las publicaciones de los proyectos del Séptimo Programa Marco, así como los enlaces a algunos tipos de resultados específicos, como conjuntos de datos y «software», se obtienen dinámicamente de OpenAIRE .
Resultados aprovechables
Successful implementation of the pricing reform, as put forward in the White Paper, is a complex issue. This requires first cross-modal research on cost calculation to ensure a coherent approach and level playing field in support of the European legislation currently being prepared and put in place.
Policy makers and the public also need further and more detailed information on the benefits of pricing. One way of demonstrating these are through real-life demonstration projects. These should be carefully designed to tackle both the technical and socio-economic complexities and to address acceptability problems, which can be particularly striking in urban areas.
The GRACE project aimed to facilitate the implementation of transport pricing systems that reflect the costs of infrastructure use in order to support the development of sustainable transport systems. This project will benefit from the results achieved by two FP5 projects: MC-ICAM and UNITE.
The main outcomes of the project are as follows.
1) Cost estimation and charge calculation
The project did extensive new research on cost estimation across modes and cost categories. It has also developed a user-friendly software tool that enables the user to specify a situation they are interested in and to derive a reasonable approximation of the relevant external costs.
The cost estimation work has analysed a series of case studies. These case studies have in general shown that there is no standard methodology for marginal costs estimation, and that the methodological approaches available are strongly influenced by data availability issues and by the type of transport mode under examination.
Other findings specific to case studies focused on road and rail modes are the following:
- Optimal charges for the use of transport infrastructure will be below average maintenance and renewal costs for road, and a long way below for rail, wherever there is spare capacity and little environmental impact.
- Most of the evidence suggests that charges should be higher for low quality, less heavily used infrastructure (the low quality nature of the infrastructure makes it more susceptible to damage).
-- Environmental charges for noise and air pollution should vary with the characteristics of the vehicle.
The main findings concerning case studies focused on port, inland waterways and airports are the following:
- Efficient charges for ports and inland waterways will comprise a wear and tear charge for the use of locks, plus congestion, scarcity and environmental charges.
- Airports produce substantial environmental costs which are not usually internalised in charges.
- If capacity is expanded in line with demand, and operators reserve blocks of capacity on long run contracts (e.g. in ports), long run marginal cost pricing may be more appropriate.
2) Accounts and monitoring of pricing reforms
This project has suggested a range of methodological improvements of transport accounts to enable their use as monitoring tool for transport pricing reform. The main conclusions are:
a) To be useful in connection with pricing policy, transport accounts need to:
- split infrastructure costs into fixed and variable;
- split accident costs into internal and external;
- be based on detailed databases showing capacity utilisation ratios for individual sections of the network, and to categorise these by population density.
b) The elaboration of regional accounts can provide useful insights into relevant policy questions, but data support from regional authorities is the major prerequisite.
3) Price complexity
GRACE has also investigated the optimal degree of complexity in pricing. Models to test the performance of charge regimes with different degrees of complexity have been developed. This investigations have produced the following conclusions:
- The complex charging regime produced larger revenues and greater reductions in externalities than any of the simpler regimes, but produced lower benefits.
- The basic under-performance of the complex regime seems to be related to the fact that it was based on link-specific charges which, while reducing congestion, encouraged the use of longer routes and so led to an increase in vehicle operating costs. It has been pointed out that in this context, since users do not perceive their current operating costs correctly, their response to supposedly optimal charges will not be efficient.
- A close match between costs and individuals' behaviour cannot be expected in the short term and there is thus little reason to introduce highly differentiated charges unless they are likely to remain stable for a considerable period of time.
4) Socio-economic impacts
The project has also done research to understand the socio-economic impact of pricing traffic according to the marginal external cost. The main findings are the following:
- Substituting all existing taxes on transport by a fuel tax equal to the external costs would lead to an unrealistically high fuel tax and would not bring welfare improvements.
- The introduction of a flat kilometre charge, differentiated by type of vehicle and perhaps by country would generate substantial revenues and increase welfare significantly.
- Whenever a reform of pricing generates extra revenues, the smart use of the revenues is as important as the design of the pricing reform.
- Provided revenue is efficiently recycled, efficient charges will benefit the economies of most or all European countries, but they will tend to benefit countries at the core more than at the periphery.
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