A fair method for the calculation of the external costs of road traffic noise according to the Eurovignette Directive

•A method to calculate the external costs of road traffic noise is presented.•Improved weighting factors are developed for vehicle classes and times of the day.•All data for calculation are available from public sources.

This paper presents calculations of the costs of road traffic noise in Europe that include the development of improved noise weighting factors according to vehicle class, speed and time of the day. The Eurovignette Directive allows EU Member States to levy infrastructure charges to compensate for the external costs of noise caused by heavy goods vehicles. Here we outline a method to calculate such costs in accordance to the Eurovignette Directive, which requires using weighting factors both for vehicle classes and times of the day. The Directive does not provide specific values or guidelines for calculating these factors. Moreover, while the Directive only focuses on the charging of heavy goods vehicles for day and night, we extend the calculations to other vehicle classes and time periods.