Hans Nijland

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF HIGH-SPEED RAIL LINKS IN COST-BENEFIT ANALYSES: A CASE STUDY OF THE DUTCH ZUIDER ZEE LINE

Abstract Since 2000 it has been formally required in the Netherlands to evaluate major infrastructure projects according to a standard manual. Here the focus is on its application to the Zuider Zee line, a possible rail link to run from the west to the north of the country, starting at Schiphol Airport and ending at the northern towns in the province of Groningen. We put a major emphasis on environmental impacts of the line, including the methods used to estimate impacts and the results. Ways to improve current practice are discussed. A major advantage has been that the environment has been put on the research and policy agenda at an early stage, although insights into the effects of rail infrastructure on the landscape and nature are limited.

Do the health benefits of cycling outweigh the risks

Although from a societal point of view a modal shift from car to bicycle may have beneficial health effects due to decreased air pollution emissions and increased levels of physical activity, shifts in individual adverse health effects such as higher exposure to air pollution and risk of a traffic accident may prevail. We have summarized the literature for air pollution, traffic accidents, and physical activity using systematic reviews supplemented with recent key studies. We quantified the impact on all-cause mortality when 500,000 people would make a transition from car to bicycle for short trips on a daily basis in the Netherlands. We estimate that beneficial effects of increased physical activity are substantially larger (3-14 months gained) than the potential mortality effect of increased inhaled air pollution doses (0.8-40 days lost) and the increase in traffic accidents (5-9 days lost). Societal benefits are even larger because of a modest reduction in air pollution and traffic accidents. On average, the estimated health benefits of cycling were substantially larger than the risks relative to car driving for individuals shifting their mode of transport.

The influence of sensitivity for road traffic noise on residential location: Does it trigger a process of spatial selection?

People move to another house for different reasons. It is sometimes presumed that a process of self-selection might take place on the basis of noise sensitivity, i.e., sensitive people would either leave high noise areas or not move into these areas in the first place. Thus, a “survivor population” would remain in the high noise areas. This research aims to investigate whether such a process can be observed in the Netherlands. The study does not show evidence of a process of self-selection based on noise sensitivity. Nevertheless, the results suggest that noise-sensitive people are less satisfied with their living environment and are more willing to move than those who are not noise sensitive. Due to the limited sample size, external validity is limited.

Accelerating Car Scrappage: A Review of Research into the Environmental Impacts

This paper reviews the literature on policies that aim to accelerate car scrappage and on related models. We conclude that substantial model efforts have been made to capture the direct reaction of households with older cars to the scrappage schemes, but that indirect effects on the second-hand car market, effects on car use and emissions from car use and on lifecycle emissions have received far less attention. Emission effects are modest and occur only in the short term. The cost-effectiveness of scrapping schemes is often quite poor. The most favourable cost-effectiveness scores occur in large densely populated areas, and only (or mainly) if cars with old (or no) emissions control technologies are scrapped. A full overview of the pros and cons of scrapping schemes, including all the dominant effects and their determinants in an advanced way, is lacking. Nevertheless, we think the general conclusions with respect to the effects and cost-effectiveness as presented above are quite robust.

Fiscal Policy and CO2 Emissions of New Passenger Cars in the EU

To what extent have national fiscal policies contributed to the decarbonisation of newly sold passenger cars? We construct a simple model that generates predictions regarding the effect of fiscal policies on average CO2 emissions of new cars, and then test the model empirically. Our empirical strategy combines a diverse series of data. First, we use a large database of vehicle-specific taxes in 15 EU countries over 2001–2010 to construct a measure for the vehicle registration and annual road tax levels, and separately, for the CO2 sensitivity of these taxes. We find that for many countries the fiscal policies have become more sensitive to CO2 emissions of new cars. We then use these constructed measures to estimate the effect of fiscal policies on the CO2 emissions of the new car fleet. The increased CO2-sensitivity of registration taxes have reduced the CO2 emission intensity of the average new car by 1.3 %, partly through an induced increase of the share of diesel-fuelled cars by 6.5 percentage points. Higher fuel taxes lead to the purchase of more fuel efficient cars, but higher diesel fuel taxes also decrease the share of (more fuel efficient) diesel cars; higher annual road taxes have no or an adverse effect.

Sustainable Urban Transport

As more and more people choose to live in cities, it is paramount to understand the key elements that make cities a better place to live in. Mobility is such an element, as it concerns moving people and goods, necessary for economic growth. The big challenge is to provide mobility services at minimal cost to the environment. This book deals with precisely this topic, the mobility of people in a sustainable way. The book does not deal with the transport of goods. There are 11 chapters, each written by a different author, all of them with an academic background. It provides nice, readable insights into different issues concerning sustainable urban transport practices throughout Europe, the USA and Israel. The book is meant for spatial planning practitioners and interested urban policy-makers. The chapters deal with very diverse issues, such as child mobility, modal shift, bus service quality, multimodal mobility and car-sharing systems. Each chapter starts with an overview of current scientific knowledge on the issue at hand and contains an extensive reference list. This enables the interested reader to explore the subject further. The practical approach of the book, with rather loosely connected chapters, means that chapters can also be read independently. Yet, an overarching theoretical framework is probably missed by those looking for the bigger picture. A minor point of critique is the fact that the book is printed in black and white. This makes some of the figures, especially those in the last few chapters, slightly more difficult to understand. Throughout the book, it becomes clear that different groups in society have different mobility needs and experience different constraints. Whether it is a parent’s perception of the danger their child could be in while travelling between home and school, or the perceived quality of bus services in Malta, the examples illustrate that those perceptions both influence and play an important role in understanding mobility behaviour. Furthermore, in various chapters in the book, it is clearly shown that immigrants, the elderly, women and children have mobility needs that may differ substantially from those of the average citizen. It becomes clear that sustainable mobility policy has to take those different target groups into account in order to be effective. All in all, this book makes a great contribution to transferring current knowledge on sustainable urban transport by giving well-chosen examples from various countries. It will certainly give urban planners a better understanding of the mechanisms that influence urban mobility patterns and will hopefully inspire them to find new solutions to old problems.