External Costs of Transport in Germany

Apart from the advantages of personal mobility, transport is a very important economic factor. It provides the possibility for production processes based on the division of labor. In addition to this role, as a means for industrial production, transport has become an important economic sector in its own right. But besides the benefits, transport causes many problems. More than 50,000 persons die in road accidents every year in Western Europe. Air pollution and noise caused by transport are big problems, especially in metropolitan areas. The problems are aggravated by the tremendous growth, in particular of the volume of road and air transport. Even if future total emissions of pollutants like NO_x, VOC, and CO are likely to be reduced by technical measures, such as three way catalytic converters, total emissions of CO₂ will rise if no additional measures are taken.