ABSTRACT
Roads are the most congested, polluted and dangerous of the various transport modes within the European Union.1 According to the UNITE project, it is estimated that, in Europe, costs associated with road congestion amount to E70 billion, approximately one per cent of its overall GDP.2 Likewise, the environmental and external accident costs of road transport, taken together, are estimated to reach at least E122 billion, approximately 1.6 per cent of Europe’s GDP.3 These are not small sums, and have risen considerably since the research was carried out in 2005. Moreover, the costs described are not currently internalised in transport pricing systems, and are consequently paid for by the European taxpayer. While this may or may not arouse concern from a fi nancial point of view, the environmental prospect that awaits, if unbridled growth in road transport is allowed to continue, should surely sound an alarm. While a Common Transport Policy (CTP) constituted one of the four original policies of the European Economic Communities, awareness of emission levels and transport pricing policies has only recently arisen, followed by harmonisation measures. To state that the Commission has so far been relatively inactive in bringing environmental concerns to the fore of a transport policy originally aimed at facilitating economic integration would be unjust. However, the majority of measures promoting marginal cost pricing have been recent legislative events, and much more still remains to ensure that environmental concerns lie on a par with, let alone trump, economic aims and interests.
