University of Kassel: Car traffic costs municipalities three times as much as public transport - bicycles receive the least subsidies

Not all municipalities have a reliable data basis

Some municipalities, Sommer now knows, have an insufficient data basis and don't even know how many square meters of streets of which category they have. Some include federal and state roads in their assets because they have to maintain them, while others exclude these because they do not own them. Significant differences also exist, according to Sommer's research, in the extent to which users are asked to contribute to the financing of the infrastructure. In Kassel, for example, residents have to contribute significantly more through road expansion contributions to the construction and maintenance of infrastructure compared to Bremen. The complexity of the assessment is highlighted by the question of which mode of transport the costs of a sidewalk should be attributed to: Do only pedestrians use it? And how wide does the safety distance to motorized traffic have to be, depending on the speed at which the vehicles are driving there?

The subsidies for bicycle traffic are low

In summary of the results from the model cities Bremen, Kassel, and Kiel investigated by Sommer, it is generally true that subsidies for bicycle traffic are low compared to other traffic systems. The cost coverage ratio of public transport – i.e., the contribution with which the users of a public investment in transportation infrastructure finance its construction and maintenance through their own cost contribution – is higher from the municipality's perspective than that of car traffic. The cost coverage ratio of truck traffic is the lowest from the municipality's perspective.

In comparison of passenger transport systems, car traffic generates the highest external costs (60 to 79 percent) and pedestrian traffic the lowest. The largest share of total external costs (44 to 57 percent) is due to accident costs, and the smallest to noise pollution costs (4 to 9 percent). As the scientists calculated, in a long-term process involving practitioners from municipalities across Germany, a calculation model was developed whereby the costs of different transport systems - public transport, car, truck, bicycle, and pedestrian traffic - can be compared.

"So far, decision-makers in municipalities have only asked what the construction or expansion of a street costs, how much a bus stop costs, or what the subsidy requirement for a tram is. When building a parking garage, the costs might have been compared to the expected revenues. But who knows what a street really costs, how much it is burdened by car or truck traffic, and how much surface water needs to be disposed of compared to the railway? What do accidents cost? What does the overall balance look like? And what changes if we introduce a city toll or improve the tram service?", formulates Sommer.

The costs of the transportation infrastructure included the expenses for the areas of transportation routes, their depreciation, the costs of traffic light systems, the expense for winter services, street cleaning, street lighting, and other miscellaneous expenses. From an overall economic perspective, "external effects" that needed to be monetized, such as air pollution, climate damage, noise, and accidents, differentiated by individual transport systems, were added. To determine accident costs and allocate them to the causes, the researchers used police accident statistics, knowing that minor accidents are not fully included. Because the health benefits of physical activity are indisputable, these positive effects of non-motorized transport systems were also included. The procedure of the World Health Organization (WHO) for monetizing such effects was the basis.

What is often forgotten: Car infrastructure demands high investments

For the three example cities, the researchers determined different results, which are only limitedly comparable given the different data bases. In Kassel, for example, the public subsidy requirement (such as investments in infrastructure and their depreciation, traffic light systems, winter services, drainage, etc.) for urban traffic amounts to nearly 71 million euros per year. This amount is distributed with 5 million euros for truck traffic, 26 million euros for car traffic, and 29 million euros for public transport. Bicycle traffic, on the other hand, is subsidized with only a total of 600,000 euros per year. The costs of acquiring and maintaining private trucks and cars, including insurance premiums to cover accident costs, are not included.

Pedestrian traffic provides the most benefit

The external costs caused by accidents, noise, air pollution, and climate damage are calculated by the researchers for Kassel at more than 73 million euros. Of this, truck traffic causes 9.5 million euros, car traffic 57.5 million euros, and public transport 3.5 million euros. Bicycle and pedestrian traffic contribute to external costs only with accident costs (bicycle 2 million euros / pedestrians 0.7 million euros) but provide a benefit (negative costs) of nearly 13 million euros through bicycle and nearly 68 million euros through pedestrian traffic due to their health preventive effect.

A city toll would need to be substantial

In Kiel and Bremen, the share of bicycle traffic is about three times as high as in Kassel. In Bremen, with its port, truck traffic has almost double the share compared to Kassel and Kiel. To offset the public subsidies for truck and car traffic and the external costs of these traffics through a city toll, Bremen would need to charge 36.7 cents per truck kilometer, Kassel 55.9 cents per kilometer, and Kiel 28.7 cents per kilometer. For car kilometers, the toll would have to be 12.9 cents in Bremen, 12.2 cents in Kassel, and 6.6 cents in Kiel.

What does that mean?

It's hardly surprising that the car, with all its associated infrastructure, is the costliest of all modes of transport. But in this clarity, as the VDV also acknowledges, it is indeed surprising. One would hope that the involved politicians and especially the Federal Minister of Transport Volker Wissing (FDP) would take this study, which BMDV itself promoted, as a reason for a fundamental paradigm shift. Finally, create clarity and transparency about the true costs - and prioritize the modes of transport with the lowest costs and the greatest benefits, namely the environmental alliance of public transport, bicycle, and pedestrian traffic.

In other words: finally take real market economy seriously - instead of clinging to the planned economy ideology of the car-friendly city of the 1960s, subsidizing the (fossil) car and its infrastructure, while always accusing the Greens of ideology. Neoliberalism, with its theory of "everlasting growth" (which always comes at the expense of someone else or the environment) that is absurd due to physical principles and the fundamentals of thermodynamics, is also an unfortunately dominant ideology for decades, leading us into this climate policy dead end and ever-new CO2 emission records.

In any case, the researchers in Kassel are certainly not ideologues but sober scientists who, besides a clear analysis, have also provided a helpful tool for municipalities. Especially a liberal should be familiar with the market economy principle and the term "external costs." More honesty, please!