Despite numerous empirical studies of external costs of transport, there have been no practicable estimations of the external costs such as emissions, noise and accidents. The proportion of external costs already internalised because the road users that cause the external costs are at the same time victims of them, is debated. Since it is unclear to what extent external costs are only caused because of insufficient provision of road structure by the government, the government may be considered responsible for the external costs of road traffic. The external benefits of traffic are described and the balance between external costs and external benefits debated. Initial studies of data for Germany from 1950-1990 suggest that 49% of overall growth of national income resulted from traffic, with road traffic responsible for 26.1% of this increase.
Abstract