A new approach for allocating pavement damage between heavy goods vehicles for road-user charging

This paper argues that current Heavy Goods Vechicle (HGV) charging systems do not take into account key factors affecting the extent of pavement damage caused by individual HGVs. Thus, charges are poorly aligned to actual costs which is contrary to the EC's polluter pays principle. This paper describes the development and on-road trials of a new system, which uses on-board axle weighing and satellite positioning technology to estimate the amount of pavement damage caused on individual road links by an individual HGV. Although the on-road trials of the system were successful and demonstrated how current HGV charging systems can be improved in order to align pavement costs more closely to pavement charges, the paper also notes a number of implementation issues that need to be overcome before widespread implementation of the system is practicable.