The importance of external costs for assessing the potential of trams and trains for urban freight distribution

As a solution for increasing urban freight distribution issues, such as rising vehicle movements, more environment-friendly transport modes including rail could be an option. So far, investigation within this domain has been confined primarily to applying (social) cost-benefit analyses to specific cases. These existing (social) cost-benefit analyses show the importance of external costs in the profitability calculations of urban rail freight initiatives. Therefore, accurate and appropriate external cost data are crucial for the robustness of a social cost-benefit framework. This paper identifies firstly the external cost elements related to the use of trams and trains for urban freight distribution. Secondly, a range of common external cost values is provided for Belgian and Flemish urban areas. A minimum and maximum value is determined for each external cost, when available data allowed this. In further research, these values will be used as input for a generic social cost-benefit framework to assess the potential of trains and trams for urban freight distribution.