The article 'How to achieve less emissions from freight transport in Sweden' won an Emerald Literati Award as Highly Commended Paper. The article is authored by professor Kevin Cullinane from the Department together with Inge Vierth, Rune Karlsson and Tobias Linde from the Swedish Road and Transport Research Institute.
The paper examines how a range of different infrastructure fees and taxes influences modal split, port throughputs, air emissions, societal costs of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and air pollution, as well as logistics costs.
The Swedish national freight model is used to simulate a range of different proposed infrastructure fees, one by one and in combination. The volume of emissions of CO2-equivalents, NOx, SOx and PM under the different scenarios is calculated in both volume and monetary terms, by applying national emission factors and EU values for external costs.
Road user fees are calculated to have the largest impact on the modal split, GHG emissions and air pollution. The impact increases slightly when road user fees are combined with higher fees for sea and rail and/or gate fees in all Swedish ports. The imposition of gate fees over €30 per truck in all ports leads to shifts in cargo to land-based modes and to ports outside Sweden. The logistics costs in Sweden are found to be three to ten times higher than the benefits of reduced GHG emissions and air pollution, although other benefits to society need to be considered as well.
How to achieve less emissions from freight transport in Sweden