ABSTRACT
It is widely known that road transport creates many different kinds of ‘externalities’, affecting human health, regional and global climates, congestion, road wear and tear, accidents, noise, soiling and the so-called ‘barrier effect’. The aim of this chapter is to present order of magnitudes estimates of these costs for Sweden and to discuss the policy response. Chapter 2 has presented the case that it is the marginal external costs that matter from an efficiency point of view, and yet a comprehensive picture of these costs is almost impossible to give, since these costs vary dramatically in different circumstances. Therefore, in addition to some examples of estimated marginal external costs, the total tax-relevant external costs will also be presented since these give an indication of the severity of the problems. These costs are defined as the total amount of tax paid that would occur if the road charge system were designed in an economically optimal way. Finally, these costs are compared with the actual tax paid in order to see whether road users as a group are ‘over-charged’ or not.
