Design of a user charge for heavy-duty vehicles on German motorways considering the objectives of efficiency, fairness and environmental protection - Findings from the EU Research Project DESIRE.

The German government plans to introduce a kilometre charge on motorways for heavy duty vehicles greater than 12t, beginning in the year 2003. According to an EU Directive the charge has to be orientated to the average infrastructure costs and can be differentiated according to the environmental performance ("EURO Standard") of the vehicles. Based on the possible differentiation of the user charge this paper analyses the probable impacts on the transport market and on basic environmental indicators. Three scenarios are constructed: first, a modest user charge only on motorways; second, a higher user charge on the whole network of federal roads with a given level of service of the railways; and third, the previous scenario combined with an improved level of service of the railways. The result is that only in the case of the third scenario the hope of environmental policy is realistic that road transport can be reduced and environmental quality significantly improved through a road user charging scheme. (Author/publisher).