Each activity has a benefit and an associated cost. The car gives us unparalleled freedom of movement, but not only do you have to buy it and fill it with fuel, but it can also cause accidents, requires the construction and maintenance of roads, etc. It is known as “negative externality” to those costs that, although they are not paid by the consumer or the seller and do not tend to be previously budgeted (in the case of infrastructures), we end up paying them later together.
As we become more aware of climate change or the limitation of space and life in cities, social agents take a closer look at all that “externalized cost” that is not being computed. For example, and according to the latest IMF estimate in this regard, the European Union is “subsidizing” fossil fuels for an amount of 289,000 million euros per year (the ranking is led by China with 1.4 trillion dollars per year).
Tell me how much, how much, how much. In 2019, the European Commission published a report on the “Situation of internalization in the European transport sector” both to know the state of the art of that level of “subsidy” that is made of each transport method by the different European countries and then make an assessment of which strategies would be the most appropriate to correct costs while doing the least possible damage to society as a whole. The plan is to “internalize” transport infrastructure and outsourcing, that is, both that the States duly compute each and every one of the costs and add them to their expense accounts, and then decide to what degree and in what way they will be carried out. will charge users and / or taxpayers.
“The total cost coverage index” of a transport route, in this case of all road transport (from cars to trucks to motorcycles) “it gives us an idea of the level of recovery of all costs by determining whether external and infrastructure costs are internalized by the road of income from taxes and total charges ”of a State. The costs take into account many factors, from noise or light pollution to the price of roads, CO2 emissions, loss of biodiversity, accidents, diseases and much more.
In the following graph, the blue line would represent the closest approximation to covering the cost, exceeding it (which, as we see, nobody does) would mean getting more money than it costs, and moving away is not covering the costs. The average cost of this transport in the EU is 10.7 cents per kilometer while EU members are charging, on average, 5.01 cents. That is, “subsidizing” to more or less 50%.
From Denmark to LuxembourgDanes cover costs 99% compared to 17% for the small country, but they are exceptions. Denmark has very low levels of air pollution, high car revenues and few accidents. Luxembourg is the European capital for road pollution. In countries such as Lithuania or Romania, high noise pollution levels are added to accidents and inefficient planning in their infrastructures. Belgium, for example, is affected by its usual traffic congestion, which means a loss of quality of life for users.
A) Yes, as explained by M. Martínez, and always according to the calculations of these community researchers, “in Spain each Spaniard loses 926 euros for this, both those who drive and those who do not.” At present we are only collecting 42% of the internalities. The UK covers 50%, France 48% and Germany 36%.
Some other surprise: The report does not focus only on portraying cars, but on all types of transport, although, as they well explain, to assess the maritime and aviation media there is no standardized and widespread way of collecting data, so they have done a representative selection of ports and airports and have made an extrapolation. That is why we find other striking data: the degree of cost coverage for passenger cars is, on average, 63% compared to 24% for buses or 20% for motorcycles, while the degree of coverage for trains electricity is 181%. The now almost extinct diesel train is, by far, the means that least covers its costs, and motorcycles are hugely off the chart in terms of average costs per vehicle due to their enormous footprint of accidents and noise disturbances.
From the one who uses it to the union. Here each ideological group and each party will have its own recipe for dealing with this issue. Today we see that, with regard to the car, the whole of the citizenship supports drivers to a significant degree regardless of whether these taxpayers use the car or not. But in Spain we are doing the same with Health, where that of “who uses it, pays it” does not apply. What happens is that these two activities are not exactly the same because they do not generate the same negative and positive externalities. But that is another debate.