Economic Cost of Urban Freight GHG Mitigation

Abstract

Replacing diesel freight vehicles in urban areas by electric ones would mitigate GHG emission but would also have other costs for urban freight and for public authorities as well as costs and benefits for environment. The cost of mitigating GHG by such a policy is estimated on the 2030–2050 period as the ratio between the total mitigated GHG and the over cost of ‘Electric Vehicle’ scenarios compared with ‘Business As Usual’ (BAU) scenario. Assuming that diesel freight vehicles are prohibited in urban areas, two ‘Electric Vehicle’ scenarios are assessed: in the first electric freight scenario (EV1), urban freight is carried in electric vans with a two tones payload while in (EV2), we assume an electric truck with a six tonnes payload. Our assumptions for these three scenarios are based on a detailed French shipper survey for freight traffic, on a study of the French Ministry of transport for traffic growth and from literature for vehicle costs. Economic costs and benefit of each scenario including BAU are assessed for the community, i.e. for urban freight transport (carriers and shippers), for public finance and external costs are assessed using tutelary values. The cost of GHG mitigation is high in scenario EV1 but in scenario EV2 the mitigation of GHG is going along with a large benefit for society.