Background EG 1 Interurban Road

Clearly the key issue in inter urban road pricing from the point of view of EC policy is the pricing of heavy goods vehicles, including both the debate over the Eurovignette Directive and the experience of those countries who have already implemented a kilometre based pricing system (namely Switzerland, Germany and Austria).

There is now an agreement within the Council of Ministers on the revision of the Eurovignette Directive, which would permit kilometre based charges on all roads, with a ceiling of average allocated infrastructure costs but more fine differentiation in time and space on the basis of congestion, accident and environmental costs. This however, leaves major disagreements both within Parliament and amongst stakeholders:

• the industry demands earmarking of funds for road building, but whilst this is recommended in the agreement it is not mandatory;
• Parliament and environmental groups insist on full internalisation of external costs, but this is strongly opposed by industry who argue that these costs cannot be adequately measured;
• the measurement of wear and tear and allocation of infrastructure costs between vehicle types remains controversial;
• mark ups to fund rail infrastructure, even in sensitive regions, are resisted by much of industry;
• peripheral states remain worried that high charges in core countries will damage their economies, whilst transit countries are concerned that charges will be held below the level of costs they incur.
  

Whilst it will be natural to concentrate on heavy goods vehicles, since that is where the competence of the EC to legislate lies, the private car should also be considered. There is an obvious interaction between the two, inasmuch as gods vehicle operators do not see why they should be charged for external costs if car users are not.

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