Counting the
Kilometres - and paying for them
How to introduce an EU wide kilometre charging system
Acknowledgements and further contacts
Road haulage is big! It transports more goods than any other
means of transport in Europe, and has grown rapidly in recent decades,
providing prosperity to those in the industry.
But there have been problems arising from this growth, notably:
all caused by lorries which
pay for some but not all the damage they cause.
And that is the problem. Road haulage has grown partly because it
does not have to pay the full costs of its activity. This is a situation which politicians, economists, campaigners
and the European Commission recognise cannot be allowed to continue.
The Commission addressed this
situation in a white paper published in 1998[1].1 It needed to find solutions which were fair
to:
And among its ideas was a
system of kilometre charging.
The idea of kilometre charging
looks promising. In essence, a fair kilometre charging system would have to:
The question is: how could
this actually be done?
Switzerland is the only
European country so far to have concrete plans for introducing a charge on all
kilometres driven by heavy goods vehicles on its whole territory (not just
motor-ways). Austria and Germany have plans to introduce kilometre charging
systems within a few years, but only for their motorways. And there is growing
interest in Great Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden, though no firm plans as
yet.
The Swiss have made some
decisions on technical issues. Its
system will consist of:
It will be a legal
requirement for Swiss vehicles to have an on-board unit (OBU), and foreign
lorries will be encouraged to have one as it would avoid manual payments on
every trip, which would cause disruptions to journeys.
The Swiss system looks good
as a starting point, but it makes only limited use of GPS. Given that GPS will be increasingly used in
lorries for other purposes (safety features, electronic road maps, etc) and
given its ability to identify a vehicle’s location, it should be further
exploited to help create a system of fair prices for road use.
So the challenge is to find a
feasible system which gets as close to optimal charging as possible. It would
have to charge for all kilometres driven within a member state, ideally
differentiating the charge between individual roads which have different
characteristics (and would therefore require different levels of charging to
cover the full cost). However, it is
probably too ambitious to attempt a high level of differentiation at this
stage. So the aim should be to have a
system which can differentiate the charge country-by-country, for certain
geographical areas (like a mountain range with a delicate ecosystem), and for
certain specific roads like motorways.
The technical set-up of a
feasible system would be based on GPS, an electronic tachograph, an electronic
on-board unit, GSM communications, and some roadside beacons.
GPS – the American Department
of Defence developed its GPS (Global
Positioning System) satellite tracking technology for military purposes, and it
is now available for civil uses. GPS would be used for registering when a
vehicle enters a new charging area.
Electronic tachograph – an electronic
tachograph is mandatory on all goods vehicles in the EU and is used to measure
the kilometres driven. It is possible to measure the kilometres using GPS and
additional sensors, but unlike the electronic tachograph, this would not be a
legally accepted method.
On-board unit – the
electronic OBU, which costs around e 800 per lorry, would store vehicle
characteristics such as registration plate, number of axles, permissible axle
loads, engine emission class, etc. It
would also be used for storing data on the number of kilometres driven in the
different charging areas, and could even calculate the charge itself.
GSM – the Global System for
Mobile communications is the largest standard in Europe, with many areas
already fully covered by it. GSM can be used to identify the vehicle, to tap
its OBU for data on kilometres driven (including how many are driven in
different charging areas), and for payment.
Roadside beacons – these have
been used for many years in tolling systems, for example in France and
Italy. They generally work with
dedicated short-range communications, sometimes called microwave. They would be used for enforcement purposes
(eg. checking whether a trailer was being used), and could also be used for
indicating that a lorry is entering a new charging area.
There are three possible ways
of paying for the kilometres driven.
The first two seem more
plausible and acceptable methods than the pre-pay system.
In terms of which roads the kilometre
charge would apply to, it could be used just for motorways, but applying it to
all roads would be more efficient. This
is because the charges would more accurately reflect the cost and damage
lorries impose on society, and it would remove a possible risk that lorry
drivers would use roads unsuited to heavy vehicles to avoid the charge. It would also be financially better for
governments.
If the system is adopted
across the EU, the number of vehicles without on-board units will be
small. But there will still be a few,
notably low-mileage vehicles which might legitimately claim an exemption from
the requirement to spend e 800 on an on-board unit, and non-EU vehicles from
countries without kilometre charging (or with a system that is incompatible with
the EU’s). A way of charging these
vehicles could be found, for example the low-mileage vehicles could be charged
for their annual distance driven (to be read at the annual vehicle inspection),
and foreign lorries could use a semi-electronic self-service system with
vehicle identity cards, or if absolutely necessary a manual system with paper
and cash.
No one measure can hope to
solve all the social and environmental problems which stem from road haulage,
but an electronic kilometre charging system could replace a number of existing
charges in a step-by-step process:
1.
When it is first introduced, it should replace the Eurovignette, annual
vehicle tax, and tolls on motorways, bridges and tunnels.
2.
The new charge should be used gradually to internalise the marginal
social costs of heavy goods vehicles.
3.
Eventually member states should allow the charge to replace any part of
existing fuel taxes that are not levied to cover the costs of carbon dioxide
emissions, and possibly also road accidents.
4.
Once the kilometre charging system has been extended to cars and vans,
diesel fuel will need to be taxed only for carbon emissions – that would reduce
incentives to evade tax caused by diesel being taxed lower than petrol.
So how could it be done?
Once the technical decisions
have been made, an electronic kilometre charging system could be introduced
immediately and unilaterally. One state
acting alone would not contravene the rules of the internal market as the
charge is non-discriminatory and based on the principle of territoriality.
However, there are certain
advantages to introducing a kilometre charging system across all member states
of the EU. These include:
A multilateral approach would
also allow for a common authority for kilometre charging, something like the
Eurocontrol agency which collects fees from airlines for using European flight
corridors. Such an agency would then
pass the appropriate money back to the countries where the kilometres were
driven (the territoriality principle).
There would have to be a few
changes to EU legislation, notably Directive 1999/62/EC on heavy goods vehicle taxation
and user charges (the so-called ‘Eurovignette directive’[2]).
These include:
The directive already
contains the necessary classification of vehicles into environmental categories
as well as permitted weight and axle loads, so with relatively small changes it
could be turned into a Framework Directive for European Kilometre Charging of
Heavy Goods Vehicles.
Nevertheless, the Directive
should be slightly amended to allow differentiation between all Euro classes,
including Euro III, Euro IV and EEV.
There are a number of advantages
and very few obstacles to introducing an EU-wide system of kilometre charging:
In other words, it can be
done!
All that is lacking is the
political will. This should not be too difficult, especially if politicians can
make it clear to voters that kilometre charging is a very fair system, which
will include the abolition of annual vehicle tax, tolls on motorways, bridges
and tunnels, and ultimately - once the kilometre charging system is fully
operational - a reduction in fuel tax.
This leaflet
is a summary of the recommendations of a paper ‘Electronic Kilometre Charging for
Heavy Goods Vehicles in Europe’, by Per Kågeson and Jos Dings, published by the
European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E) in 1999 (updated by
Markus Liechti in 2000).
To obtain a
physical copy, contact the T&E secretariat (info@t-e.nu),
quoting reference T&E 99/6/fact-sheet. Alternatively it can be downloaded
from the T&E website.
T&E (The
European Federation for Transport and Environment) is Europe’s primary
non-governmental organisation campaigning on a European level for an environmentally
responsible approach to transport. T&E is the umbrella organisation of 37
member organisations covering 20 European countries working in this field.
Gröna
Bilister (The Swedish Association of Green Motorists) is a member of T&E.
Its aim is
to make road transport more friendly to the environment and to promote public
transport and cycling.
Thanks to Gröna Bilister this leaflet was produced with financial support from the Swedish Environment Protection Agency.
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