Road freight transport policies and their impact: a comparative study of Germany and Sweden

We compare policy implications from time-based charges on road freight transports, represented by the case of Sweden, to those from distance-based charges, represented by the case of Germany. The analyses based on official statistics from 2005-2014 indicate that the German road freight policy has resulted in substantially larger revenues and a cleaner truck fleet and mileage. Some support is found for that the German policy causes spill-overs to the neighbouring countries. It can be shown that the Swedish hauliers use cleaner trucks for international than for national transports. In general, the firms have incentives to use the cleanest trucks in the countries that have introduced distance-based tolls. As an estimate of the consequences of this in Sweden, the difference in environmental impact is estimated between the case with the actual composition of trucks using the Swedish network and the hypothetical case where the composition is the same as on the German toll roads. The socio-economic costs are estimated to be around € 16 million per year. This puts pressure on countries as Sweden to implement stronger policies to counter the spill-over effect. The time based charges, e.g., the Eurovignette, seem to be outdated.