The so-called Eurovignette Directive voted in June 2006 by the European Parliament and referenced as Directive UE/38/2006 sets a framework for future would-be heavy goods vehicle (HGV) road charging system on the Trans-European Road Network (TERN). This framework is based on the principle that any new toll for HGV should be consistent with the infrastructure costs that HGV are responsible for. As a consequence, tolls for all users (HGV andlight vehicles) should be calculated so that the total benefits enable the infrastructure manager to recover all infrastructure costs. Next to thisbasic rule, the directive allows tolls to vary in order to internalize external costs such as environmental costs or congestion costs. Finally, it is possible to define different classes of lorries, according to the amount of costs they are responsible for. All those rules, whether they are compulsory or optional, are followed by annexes that should be applied if themember state who wants to charge an HGV for a road has not justified the toll level to be applied in respect to these rules. Annex II describes truck classes, according to their number of axles and their weight. Annex IIIdefines three cost ratios between classes to represent the responsibilityof each kind of truck in construction costs, maintenance costs and renewal structure costs. These ratios should be used to calculate toll ratios. In order to check if these trucks classes are appropriate and if these ratios are suited to define tolls on the French road network, a new toll grid for HGV has to be built on the directive principles. To do so, infrastructure costs need to be assessed and appropriate classes of trucks have to bedefined so that infrastructure costs could be correctly supported by the HGV that cause them. Finally, a cost allocation method has to be chosen. The methodology that was developed in France in 2007-2008 to solve this question and the results it gave are described. For the covering abstract seeITRD E145999
Samenvatting