The Costs of Road Infrastructure and Congestion in Europe (Contributions to Economics)

The book deals with the calculation of costs for road infrastructure and congestion and the allocation of these costs to vehicle types. It focusses on heavy goods vehicles. The most important features of the book are i) the review of the state of the art, ii) a discussion of the theoretical requirements for cost accounts under the aspects of different pricing purposes, iii) a comprehensive treatment of various methodological issues for cost calculation, iv) the elaboration of empirical results for the EU-countries and Switzerland. Of particular value is the fact that existing practice of road accounts in Europe is not simply summarised but the different methodologies are applied at data sets from three countries and quantitatively compared. Further benefits are the comprehensive information and data collection, the empirical results for road infrastructure costs, the harmonised treatment of congestion costs and the policy recommendations.