The UNITE project is designed to support policy-makers in the setting of charges for transport infrastructure use by providing appropriate methodologies and empirical evidence. For achieving this aim UNITE has identified three core aspects which have to be elaborated, namely the transport accounts, the marginal cost estimation and the integration of both. While the term marginal costs and at least the ideal methodological approach for estimating them is well defined there is less clarity with respect to the transport accounts to be elaborated within the UNITE project. Already the term „transport accounts" is ambiguously used, and different people have different expectations on the purpose and the outcomes of transport accounts within UNITE. To elaborate a consistent methodology for the transport account, i.e. to define clearly the aims, the basic design, the structure and the categorisation and disaggregation of the transport accounts, is thus an essential step of the UNITE project. This report deals with the methodological approach for the accounts. It focuses on the aims, scope, the basic valuation principles and the design of the accounts. A preliminary review of existing transport accounts is given in Deliverable 1: The Overall UNITE Methodology. A more detailed review of accounts can be found in the Annex of this document. This report starts in chapter 2 with reviewing and summarising the existing practice of transport accounts in Europe. This review and the findings of UNITE Dl feed in both for identifying the aims of accounts in UNITE and the basic methodological principles they should follow (chapter 3). Chapter 4 summarises the progress UNITE has made so far in defining the scope of the accounts, e.g. categorising costs and revenue elements to be taken into account in UNITE or not, and the level of disaggregation with respect to modes, transports means, functional and spatial differentiation. Chapter 5 summarises the methodological approaches for each cost element considered, based on the interim reports IR 5.2 to IR 10.2. Chapter 6 presents a template of the prototype design of the accounts and the basic steps for the elaboration. Chapter 7 concludes the decisive elements for further work. (Author/publisher) For other reports in the UNITE project, see http://www.its.leeds.ac.uk/projects/unite/
Samenvatting