External cost calculator for Marco Polo freight transport project proposals

The Marco Polo programme of the European Commission aims to shift or avoid freight transport off the roads to other more environmentally friendly transport modes. The programme is implemented through yearly calls for proposals. The proposals received to each call are selected for financial support inter alia on the basis of their merits in terms of environmental and social benefits. The evaluation of each proposal's merits in terms of environmental and social benefits is based on the external costs for each transport mode. On the Commission’s request the Joint Research Centre, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (JRC-IPTS) modified and updated the methodology underlying the calculation of external costs and the software application that automates the estimation of the impact on external costs for specific projects. The work was based on a combination of data and model results that allow the estimation of transport volumes, fleet mixes, levels of utilisation and resulting externalities with up-to-date methodologies for the economic valuation of these externalities. The new external cost methodology and calculator covers road, rail, inland waterways and short sea shipping. External cost coefficients are provided for environmental impacts (air quality, noise, climate change) and socio-economic impacts (accidents, congestion). The methodology permits the estimation of external cost coefficients for specific mode subcategories based on fuel technology, cruising speed, vehicle size, and cargo type.JRC.J.2-The economics of climate change, energy and transpor

Longer and Heavier Vehicles for Freight Transport

The European Commission is considering to allow the use of Mega-Trucks (abbreviated as MTs in this study), vehicles measuring up to 25.25 m and weighing up to 60t, for the whole of the European Union transport system. Such trucks are already in circulation in Finland and Sweden, while several member states are considering their introduction. The analysis of the impacts of mega-trucks is quite complicated since it entails the adoption of assumptions concerning the technical characteristics of future mega-trucks, the evaluation of costs at truck level, the estimation of the repercussions on costs for the transported goods, the prediction of the market share of mega-trucks and the calculation of the external impacts, including environmental damage, accidents and wear and tear. This study collected data on the technical and economic characteristics of mega-trucks and carried out a Monte Carlo analysis in order to take the uncertainty of the main influencing factors into acount. The result was a range of potentail costs and benefits. The impacts of the introduction of mega-trucks at EU level can be positive in both economic and environmental terms. The increased payloads per vehicle are expected to reduce transport costs and lead to significant savings for operators, industry and consumers. Since fewer trucks would be required to transport the same volume of trade, the environmental and other external costs of freight transport would also be lower, even though an individual mega-truck consumes and pollutes more than a conventional truck.JRC.J.2-The economics of climate change, energy and transpor

Economic Effects of the EU External Aviation Policy

This report investigates the economic effects of EU’s external aviation policy with third countries. In particular, focusing on 27 countries with which the EU has an Air Services Agreement (ASA) of varying degree of liberalization, we assessed changes in fare, flight frequency and capacity utilization. We find that the implementation of the EU external aviation policy results in lower fare levels and higher load factors (capacity utilization). The effect of the policy on frequency, however, is not statistically significant. Our findings suggest that further liberalization can lead to more benefits to consumers.JRC.C.6-Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transpor

Measuring congestion in European cities

Congestion is a major issue for cities and often a determining factor of connectivity within urban areas and intra-city interactions. It is a repercussion of the massive adoption of cars as the main transport mode and an externality related to the nature of cities as it represents the negative aspect of agglomeration, the major driving force of growth in cites. Congestion is a major issue for cities and often a determining factor of connectivity within urban areas and intra-city interactions. It is a repercussion of the massive adoption of cars as the main transport mode and an externality related to the nature of cities as it represents the negative aspect of agglomeration, the major driving force of growth in cites. We analyse the causes and impacts of congestion in order to be able to identify viable solutions against it. For this purpose, traffic needs to be studied at fine spatial and temporal resolution levels. We measure congestion at the level of Functional Urban Area considering the full transport network in order to estimate travel times between a large set of origins-destinations as determined by a high resolution population grid (size: 500mx500m). The impact of congestion is measured with the help of the relevant TomTom indicators that provide very detailed information on the variation of speed during the day at road link level. Road traffic also affects accessibility. We measure accessibility using different operationalisations, with and without congestion, for all the populated grid cells in the functional urban areas of Brussels, Seville and Krakow. By analysing urban areas at such a fine spatial level we manage to capture the impacts of congestion in detail. This study is the first step towards the assessment and comparison of traffic in all European cities.JRC.C.6-Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transpor

Potential impacts of liberalisation of the EU-Africa aviation market

Intercontinental air services between Europe and Africa are mainly governed by bilateral agreements negotiated between the individual countries of the EU and the various African governments. This paper provides an overview of the regulatory trends and development of air transport between EU and Africa, focussing on passenger traffic developments over the past five years and discusses the impact of liberalisation between Africa and the EU on the degree of concentration in airport traffic shares. Results indicate a growing role of Dubai and Istanbul and a decreasing role of Europeans hubs as gateways to Africa. While Johannesburg, Cairo, Nairobi and Lagos remain the main international hubs in Africa, regional airport hubs have emerged in Algiers, Dar es Salaam and Casablanca. Liberalisation of EU-African aviation markets is likely to result in the emergence of further African regional hubs.JRC.C.6-Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transpor

An analysis of the potential impacts of further liberalisation of the EU-African aviation market

Intercontinental air services between Europe and Africa are mainly governed by bilateral agreements negotiated between the individual countries of the European Union (EU) and the various African governments. This paper provides an overview of the regulatory trends and development of air transport between the EU and Africa, focussing on passenger traffic developments over the past five years and discusses the impact of liberalisation between Africa and the EU on the degree of concentration in airport traffic shares. The results indicate a growing role of Dubai and Istanbul and a decreasing role of European hubs as gateways to Africa. While Johannesburg, Cairo, Nairobi and Lagos remain the main international hubs in Africa, regional airport hubs have emerged in Algiers, Dar es Salaam and Casablanca. It is argued that liberalisation of the EU-Africa aviation markets is likely to result in the emergence of further African regional hubs

Measuring road congestion

The methodology presented here allows to measure and monitor road congestion across Europe using data from TomTom in-vehicle navigation systems. The approach is based on the analysis of a large number of real vehicle speeds that have been measured on each road link and the application of algorithms that allow the estimation of congestion indicators for specific types of roads during selected time periods. The results include the detailed mapping of recurrent congestion both geographically and temporally, as well as the comparison of the quality of service of road networks between different zones. The data used represent real speed measurements from in-vehicle navigation systems for different time periods and days of the week. The large number of "probes" (over 1 trillion of measurements) gives a highly accurate and representative picture of the actual driving conditions across the European road network. The data collected are clustered in groups of speed profiles which represent change in average speed behaviour along a road link in five-minute time intervals over a 24-hour period. Each road link has a specific speed profile assigned per day of the week. The average speed on a specific link during a certain time period can be compared to the benchmark speed estimated for the link under free flow conditions or against selected threshold values. As a result, indicators of congestion for different time periods can be measured and compared across links, regions and countries.JRC.J.1-Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transpor

A Data Envelopment Analysis approach for accessibility measures: Simulating operational enhancement scenarios for railway across Europe

Introduction: As well known, infrastructure endowment influences competitiveness of a region since the characteristics of a transport system in terms of capacity, connectivity, speeds, etc. determine the advantages/disadvantages of an area compared to other locations. This article attempts to investigate the potential impacts on rail accessibility across Europe when different possible operational enhancement scenarios are simulated. Methods: The simulations are carried out by means of a combination of the TRANSTOOLS rail network and Traffic Analyst, the post-processing analyses are implemented in Matlab and the results for each zone (at NUTS3 level) are reported both in tabular form and in easy-to-readArcGIS maps. Several accessibility measures are evaluated including two Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approaches aiming to construct a composite index for embracing all the complementary information provided by ‘partial’ accessibility sub-indicators; to better evaluate and understand the results either sensitivity and robustness analyses are performed for both the aggregate indicators. Results: The outcomes provide insight into where major benefits in terms of accessibility can be expected; in particular the current infrastructure endowment already benefits many regions but improvements in speed could still increase significantly rail accessibility across Europe (mainly outside the core area as in Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, etc.). Furthermore both the proposed global indexes, although associating different ‘endogenous’ weights to the various sub-indicators, appear to be worthy and robust against uniform random noise. Conclusions: Ultimately the results provide information useful for the prioritization of investment needs; moreover even if the interpretation of the partial accessibility indicators is clear and useful for policy-makers, the evaluation of a composite measure could allow planners not only to compare or fully rank the level of accessibility for different regions but even to control for eventual confusing and/or incomplete results that may appear when using only a partial approach.JRC.J.1-Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transpor

Accessibility and congestion in European cities: Final deliverable of Task 1 of the REGIOTRANSII project

This is the second and final deliverable of the 1st task of the REGIOTRANSII project and refers to the results that have already been presented in two scientific journal publications: Christodoulou et al. (2020) and Christodoulou and Christidis (in press), and a JRC Technical Report: Christodoulou and Christidis (2020a). Different accessibility indicators are calculated for all urban areas with more than 250 thousand people in the EU27, the UK, Switzerland and Norway. Each city is analysed by means of a population grid of 500 m by 500 m and represented by a wider area covering both the densely populated urban centre and the commuting zone. To capture congestion, we measure accessibility for each grid cell at different times of the day that correspond to different traffic conditions using the detailed network and congestion information provided by TomTom.JRC.C.6-Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transpor

Cross-border transport infrastructure in the EU

The report provides a set of indicators and tools that allow policy makers to measure accessibility and connectivity of border regions in Europe both at national and international levels. The methodology can be used to identify areas where transport infrastructure may be lacking and prioritize potential investments based on specific policy relevant criteria. The approach uses very detailed spatially disaggregate data covering EU28 plus Norway and Switzerland at grid level (1km by 1km), as well as the complete road network. This level of resolution allows many of the specificities of the areas covered to be taken into account.JRC.C.6-Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transpor