13.09.2014 Views

Keith Vodden Dr. Douglas Smith - Transports Canada

Keith Vodden Dr. Douglas Smith - Transports Canada

Keith Vodden Dr. Douglas Smith - Transports Canada

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

Ontario Model<br />

d) Additional Pollution<br />

A further social cost of traffic delays caused by collisions is the pollution<br />

associated with extra burning of fossil fuels during the delay. It is widely recognized that<br />

traffic congestion generally, and specifically from collisions, contributes to increased<br />

levels of exposure to vehicle emission-related pollutants. Vehicle drivers and passengers<br />

will feel the negative impacts during traffic delays. The non-driving public may also<br />

experience degradation in the air quality in the area of the collision. Generally, the costs<br />

will be larger in urban areas where roadways are contiguous to large numbers of<br />

residences and persons. There is evidence in the literature that for passengers, pollution<br />

levels inside stopped and idling vehicles, in a group of stopped vehicles, may be from two<br />

to eight times higher than when moving at the speed limit. Any policy-related measures<br />

to reduce collision-related congestion will reduce the health risks to vehicle occupants<br />

and will also reduce general population risk in urban areas.<br />

The extensive literature on air pollution shows that the benefits of risk reduction<br />

related to reduced air quality are substantial. These benefits relate primarily to emissions<br />

of air pollutants such as hydrocarbons (HC), CO, NO x , as well as emissions of<br />

greenhouse gases (GHGs). In this project, we have estimated incremental emissions<br />

related to motor vehicle collisions in Ontario and then valued these additional emissions<br />

using widely cited estimates from the environmental policy literature.<br />

The most widely cited report on air quality and valuing benefits is provided by the<br />

U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, 1999) estimating the benefits of the U.S.<br />

Clean Air Act in preventing premature deaths and illness due to reduced air quality.<br />

For greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, Pearce (2005) and Tol (2005) provide<br />

estimates of the benefits of emission reductions designed to be used in a cost-benefit<br />

context (that is, to estimate social cost). Their estimates are in the range of C$2.70 to<br />

C$17.50 per tonne of CO 2 emitted. In this project, we have used an average of these<br />

numbers of C$10 per tonne of CO 2 as the value for this parameter. This literature and the<br />

environmental economics literature more generally indicate that these values are likely to<br />

be higher in the future.<br />

The air pollution literature contains many benefit estimates associated with<br />

reductions in Criteria Air Contaminants (CACs). In the case of GHG emissions including<br />

automobiles, this literature suggests that damages related to health effects account for a<br />

large fraction of the total value of what are referred to as ancillary benefits (that is<br />

benefits associated with GHG reductions that go beyond climate change). In this project,<br />

we have used a value of just over C$8 per tonne of CO 2 as the value for the ancillary<br />

benefits (air quality) parameter. The source for this estimate is a study for Resources for<br />

the Future, a leading environmental research institution, by Burtraw and Toman (1998).<br />

This means that the benefits of reducing incremental motor vehicle emissions associated<br />

with traffic incidents consist of C$10 per tonne of CO 2 plus an additional $8 per tonne of<br />

CO 2 to reflect air quality (CAC) benefits (as opposed to CO 2 climate change benefits).<br />

This latter value reflects the damage costs related to CAC emissions per tonne of CO 2 .<br />

TNS Canadian Facts, Social and Policy Research 41

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!