In the White Paper the European Commission has expressed its interest in charging for infrastructure use as a means to increase efficiency and sustainability of the transport system. Economic theory clearly indicates that pricing policies based on marginal costs lead to better usage of the available transport capacity than pricing policies based on average costs or cost recovery rules. In June 2005 ECORYS finalised a study which provides practical guidelines for realistic transport pricing in the area of inland waterways, using cost allocation. The study focuses on short run marginal costs, and considers both infrastructure costs and external costs (environmental costs, safety and accidents costs, and congestion costs). The guidelines have been applied in various case studies representing different types of waterways in the Netherlands, Germany, France and Austria. The final report of the study can be downloaded from the following website: http://europa.eu.int/comm/transport/iw/index_en.htm

Client: European Commission – Directorate General for Energy and Transport