External Costs

Transport-Related Costs in the EU and Other Countries

May 30, 2025

What are the external and infrastructure costs of the transport sector? To what extent have EU member states and other selected countries internalised these costs? The European Commission has mandated an international research consortium, including INFRAS, to investigate these questions.


Congestion, accidents, or emissions: Transport generates different external costs depending on the mode of transport.(Photo: Lennart Schulz / Unsplash)
Congestion, accidents, or emissions: Transport generates different external costs depending on the mode of transport.(Photo: Lennart Schulz / Unsplash)

Transport causes a variety of external costs, including emissions of CO2 and other pollutants, noise, accidents, and congestion. In order to quantify these external costs and to enable fair pricing mechanisms in transport, a solid data base and consistent methodologies are needed.

This is the objective of a project commissioned by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DG Move). The research consortium consists of CE Delft, Ricardo, TRT, ITS Leeds and INFRAS.

Long-term expertise for the ongoing project

INFRAS has already been involved in previous studies on the internalisation of external transport costs for the European Commission.

In the current project, infrastructure costs, external costs and transport-related taxes and charges in the EU member states and selected other countries are analysed and the degree of internalisation of transport-related costs is derived. INFRAS coordinates the work package on the analysis of taxes and charges in the countries considered, updates the handbook on external costs - and brings in long-standing expertise in the field of air transport.

Further Information:

Further INFRAS articles on this topic:

Project team

Anne Greinus Managing Partner
Maleika Wörner Senior Project Manager
Ursina Walther Senior Project Manager
Quirin Oberpriller Associate Partner
Jakob Deutschel Working Student

Project

Comprehensive study on the internalisation of external costs in transport

Duration

current

Topics


Services


Who we work for

EU Kommission, Generaldirektion Mobilität und Verkehr (DG MOVE)

Contacts

Anne Greinus Managing Partner