Document

The European Shippers’ Council (ESC) represents the interests of European industry as users of freight transport services in all modes of freight transport (deep sea shipping, short sea shipping, air transport, road transport, rail, inland waterways, both within Europe and overseas). Shippers are primarily producers of goods and services which they market, sell and distribute to their customers.

Introduction

ESC welcomes the Commission’s initiative to revise the legislative framework for charging of heavy goods vehicles for infrastructure use. It has the merit of wanting to steer the individual national initiatives we have been confronted with in recent months. Additionally, the section on allocation of revenues will prevent the use of infrastructure charging merely to boost state income. However, the proposal does seem to leave too much room for manoeuvring to the Member Sates, and might end up legitimising a patchwork of different systems and causing an increase in overall transport costs in Europe. A major problem is that member states cannot offset the cost increase caused by new road infrastructure charges by reducing fuel excise duties (except for the UK). As long as this option does not exist, the proposal is unacceptable. A second major shortcoming is that private cars are left untouched. If and when road tolls are introduced they should cover all vehicles.

Scope of the directive

The directive applies to vehicles designed for goods transport, weighing more than 3.5 tonnes authorised laden weight using motorways (and major trunk roads in the absence of motorways) which form part of the Trans European Transport Network (TEN-T = 60.,00 km in EU-15), as well as itineraries parallel to motorways. The proposal sets no deadline for elimination of the Eurovignette; it allows its co-existence with current road tolls and new charges based on distance. Additionally, Member States and regional/local authorities would remain free to put in place systems of infrastructure charges or motorway tolls for other categories of vehicles and for infrastructures other than those included in TEN-T, in particular urban road infrastructures. ESC is concerned that this range of possibilities will result in a patchwork of different systems all over Europe. Moreover, any compensation granted at national level could be undone at local level, increasing transport costs and hurting competitiveness. ESC considers that if and when national authorities decide to introduce user charges, local authorities should be consulted as to whether they also wish to introduce user charges, allowing compensation granted at national level to cover all new road charges, including those on urban infrastructure.

A missed opportunity in the Commission proposal is the lack of differentiation in fees for the various Euro categories. ESC considers it should be extended to Euro 3, 4 and 5 (in the current proposal there is no distinction between the Euro 2 category and higher), to stimulate the introduction of the cleanest vehicles.

A major shortcoming of the Commission proposal is that it is limited to commercial road transport, leaving private cars and other modes of transport untouched. The Commission considers that the issue of infrastructure charges has been settled for rail in the framework of the railway infrastructure package. However, the environmental and congestion charges mentioned there are optional and there is no guarantee this will result in a uniform European approach, comparable to that in road transport. As for the other modes of transport, the Commission merely reserves the right to present further sectoral directives. This is not in line with fair and efficient pricing, as advocated by the same Commission in its white paper on EU Transport Policy. ESC urges the Commission to come forward with objective figures on the infrastructure and external costs (and the degree of cost coverage) of all transport modes. The alleged cost difference has been the justification to revise the Eurovignet directive, and it is high time to see the facts about this. ESC would also welcome it if the Commission would clarify if and when the other modes of transport will follow, and under which conditions.

Concerning private cars, ESC does not share the Commission’s subsidiarity argument that this should be left to the Member States’ discretion because of the predominantly national use of private cars. Congestion, pollution, road safety, etc. are European problems and in ESC’s view, the proposed measures will not have the desired effect if only a small part of traffic is covered by it.

Costs to be charged for

The Commission proposes to calculate the weighted average tolls on the basis of the costs of constructing, operating, maintaining and developing the infrastructure network concerned, and to the costs of accidents not covered by insurance. ESC welcomes the fact that controversial, difficult to quantify cost elements have been excluded, and that the Commission has made clear that construction costs can only be charged for in the case of new infrastructure or of recently completed infrastructure. ESC also supports the introduction of a common methodology for calculating these costs.

Charge differentiation

The Commission invites Member States to adjust the existing tolls taking account of the different factors linked to infrastructure use (distance covered; vehicle characteristics; types of infrastructure; time of day, linked to congestion; locality, route concerned - this last criterion becoming obligatory from 1 July 2008). ESC considers that differentiated charges can play a positive role in raising cost awareness amongst the infrastructure users, but the Commission proposal should be more precise about the allowed degree of deviation from the average weighed costs. Otherwise the whole methodology of cost calculation is of no use. The weighed average of the differentiated tolls on a given road on a given day should never be higher than the official average weighed toll (eg if the average weighed toll is calculated at 10 cents per kilometer on a given road, the toll could be set at 15 cents during peak hours and 5 cents during off-peak hours (that is, if there is as much traffic during the peak hours as during the (longer) off-peak period). It should also be possible to charge lower tolls than the average weighed costs. This is particularly important for peripheral countries, since the calculation methodology puts them at a competitive disadvantage: the average weighed costs are calculated by dividing the total infrastructure costs that can be attributed to commercial traffic by the number of freight vehicle kilometres. The latter is obviously much lower in peripheral areas, which will lead to a much higher average weighed cost, increasing their transport costs as compared to more centrally based countries.

Additionally, since private cars are not charged, hopes for positive effects of charge differentiation are forlorn, which will not help boost acceptance of it. Freight vehicles will be faced with increased transport costs and will still suffer from congestion, while many companies - due to time constraints on urban distribution - do not have any alternative distribution means. Congestion will not be reduced without involving the private car.

Compensation

The Commission states in its explanatory memorandum that infrastructure fees offer the possibility of greater differentiation by vehicle type, time and place, and hence of more accurately reflecting costs in different situations without increasing the overall burden of taxes and fees in the road sector. In line with that, it is proposed that the Member States should be allowed to “provide compensation for these charges, in particular by reducing the rates of vehicle taxes”. ESC considers that of course the vehicle excise duty should be abolished, but this is a very marginal compensation. In order to not increase the overall burden of taxes and fees in the transport sector, the cost increase should be offset by lower fuel excise duties. But this is not possible (except for the UK) under the recently by the Council adopted energy taxation directive. Where should compensation come from if not from fuel excise duties? ESC considers that new charges without compensation are unacceptable, the European legislator should ensure a fiscally neutral restructuring of transport taxes and charges.

Concerning the statement that the Commission could “examine the conditions for implementing provisions making it possible to harmonise certain contract clauses in order to protect carriers vis à vis consignors, ESC is of the opinion that the Commission should not interfere in contracts between private parties, who are perfectly able to negotiate or re-negotiate contracts in the light of the introduction of user charges.

Allocation of revenues

The proposal prescribes that the revenues from motorway tolls and road infrastructure charges will be earmarked exclusively for road infrastructure and “for the benefit of the transport sector as a whole, taking account of the balanced development of the transport networks”. ESC welcomes the proposal to earmark these revenues for transport infrastructure, but considers that they should be reserved exclusively for road infrastructure. ESC opposes all forms of cross-financing, every mode of transport should finance its own infrastructure. To put the user at the heart of the European transport policy, as announced in the White Paper, in ESC’s view means that the user pays for the infrastructure it uses, and not for any other infrastructure. Additionally, the proposal already foresees the possibility of mark-ups to cross-finance other infrastructure in sensitive regions and if there is to be cross-financing it should be restricted to these exceptional cases only. However, the proposal is not clear about what exactly is a sensitive region, this needs to be further clarified.

Technical interoperability

The Commission underlines the introduction of electronic motorway toll collection system - on this subject see its proposal COM (2003) 270 final of 23 April 2003. ESC welcomes this proposal to arrive at interoperability between the different electronic toll collection systems. It is of utmost importance for making efficient use of the Trans European Transport Network. However, interoperability should not only apply to toll collection systems, but also to other box technologies such as the digital tachograph and commercial applications. Business needs an open system architecture where different services can be added subsequently without any problems and further costs. Concerning the phasing-out of microwave systems, ESC would like to stress that this is less important than having compatible systems. If and when the advantages of the new systems based on satellite technology become apparent, microwave systems will no doubt be phased out at national level, but ESC disputes the need for mandatory phasing-out. Finally, the proposal obliges the service providers to cover the whole European road infrastructure network where tolls are being levied. This will create a problem wherever toll systems are not compatible with microwave or satellite technology. Therefore the proposal should include a provision that all toll collection systems on the whole road infrastructure network of the EU shall have to be compatible with the European electronic toll service from the moment of its introduction on.

Independent infrastructure supervision authority

The proposal prescribes that independent bodies designated by Member States will ensure implementation of the directive and its correct application, notably with regard to monitoring operation of national systems, verification of allocation of financial resources for reinvestment in transport networks, promotion of synergies between the various sources of funds earmarked for infrastructures. ESC strongly supports the creation of these infrastructure supervisory authorities.

For further information contact: Nicolette van der Jagt, Secretary General of the ESC - Brussels 00 322 230 2113