Transport charges under review

Date: 18/12/1997

By Chris Johnstone

THE European Commission is to step up the pressure for different types of transport to pay their way for the infrastructure they use.

Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock is due to present a White Paper on infrastructure pricing in the first half of next year in a bid to force acceptance of the pay-your-way principle on all types of transport.

The broad review involves for the first time Commission scrutiny of the charging policies of some types of transport, such as ports.

"We are looking at all forms of transport now so that there is no discrimination between them," said an official.

The Commission has already stated that it wants road and air transport to pay their way with charges based on user costs. However, until recently there was no clear policy at all on ports and that on railways is being reiterated next year to give it more force.

Ports have been pushed into the limelight because of the huge government subsidies being thrown at them throughout Europe in a price war aimed at winning more customers. This has sparked a rising number of competition complaints within the sector.

The basic principle to be pushed by the White Paper will be for everyone to pay the costs of infrastructure use - so-called marginal cost pricing. External costs, such as those for pollution, will not be built in at this stage.

The costs of replacing infrastructure will not be covered either but regarded instead as 'sunk' (non-recoverable) costs, said an official.

This will prevent the scenario, for example, of little used railway lines being closed and the overall network being shrunk even further because the costs of major repairs are too prohibitive for normal users to cover.

Even with these safeguards, the Commission is not expected to push for the introduction of infrastructure charges overnight. Officials say a long delay will probably be allowed to give companies time to adjust to the new regime.

The paper will, however, keep up the pressure on road users, especially hauliers, to pay more. "At the moment, lorry drivers pay 1,250 ecu per year for the right to travel as many kilometres they want to in the EU. Truck drivers can easily travel around 160,000 kilometres in a year," said an official.

EU transport ministers failed last week to agree a new charging framework for around 2 million lorries which operate throughout the Union.

A compromise proposal for a new framework would have introduced a 750-ecu annual charge for the cleanest vehicles, with the maximum set at 1,600 ecu.

The Commission's long-term aim is to introduce charges which are clearly linked to the distance travelled.

European Commission to present a White Paper on transport infrastructure pricing in the first half of 1998.