Variations in the external cost of transport air pollution : The case of Sweden

In recent years large efforts have been devoted in EU-funded research projects, i.e. the ExternE-projects, to the development of an approach that can be used to estimate the external costs of air pollution. The calculation in these projects is based on the so called Impact pathway approach where the impacts from air pollution are assessed and valued. This approach has now been used to estimate the cost of air pollution of transport in Sweden for the year 2000. In addition, we have used abatement cost estimates to include the costs due to acidification and eutrophication. This is a joint project between VTI, TFK and IER at the University of Stuttgart. This report presents and discusses the results from this project, "the all-modes study", regarding air pollutants with a local and regional dispersion. It also relates the results from this project to cost estimates in other studies. Cost estimates have been calculated for all transport modes. For road transport, estimates were calculated for extra urban and urban traffic and also for two cases, Skellefteå and Stockholm. The purpose was to obtain information on the variation in costs between different traffic situations. Such information is an input in the evaluation of infrastructure investments and is also a basis for marginal cost pricing. The costs vary since there is a large number of variables that influence the estimates. Costs will depend upon which pollutant we consider and where the emissions occur. Costs will also depend upon other relationships such as the number of people being asthmatics in a population and the value placed on an asthma attack. For the latter, the assumptions used in the all-modes study are the same as those used in the EU-funded UNITE-project.