Transportation's Role in Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions ...

Transportation’s Role in Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Volume 2
• Monetary user costs. These are the costs or savings to private vehicle
operators. These include fuel costs (savings), vehicle maintenance, and
other vehicle ownership costs for private modes.
• Non-monetary user costs. The value of time to the traveler is a primary
non-monetary user cost, which is often monetized for transportation project
cost/benefit calculations. Travelers may also receive additional welfare
benefits or disbenefits (e.g., improved access to destinations, reduced
vehicle functionality).
• Externalities. These include non-monetary costs that are more difficult (or
controversial) to monetize, such as health benefits, fatality reductions, air
quality improvements, energy security, impacts from land use changes, etc.
Taxes, fees, and rebates are not included in cost-effectiveness calculations, since
they are regarded as a transfer payment (from the private sector to the public
sector). However, the imposition of taxes, fees, and rebates may create welfare
changes that are difficult to monetize but nonetheless represent a real cost or
benefit to consumers. If taxes and fees are used for financing transportation or
other GHG reduction strategies, they may have secondary effects on GHG
emissions.
For vehicle and fuel technology strategies, both the implementation costs and
the monetary cost savings are borne primarily by the same group—the vehicle
purchaser/owner. An automotive manufacturer or fuel producer will pass on
development and production costs through the purchase price of the vehicle or
fuel. The owner will also realize the benefits of fuel cost savings from more
efficient vehicles, or incur increased fuel costs for alternative fuels. Therefore,
only one set of cost-effectiveness estimates is shown for these strategies.
Welfare impacts may be significant in some cases, but are difficult to measure or
monetize and are not included in the cost-effectiveness estimates shown in this
report.
For system efficiency and travel activity strategies, both the direct
implementation cost (as usually borne by the public sector), and the net social
cost/benefit (including private sector costs or savings) are of interest. However,
estimating and presenting net social costs or benefits can be problematic,
because the non-monetary costs and benefits of many of these strategies (e.g.,
time savings, increased or decreased mobility) can be quite significant in
comparison to the monetary user costs or savings. Direct implementation costs
have been estimated for most strategies discussed in this report, and monetary
user cost savings have been estimated for some, but non-monetary user costs or
savings have rarely been quantified and monetized. Therefore, for the system
efficiency and travel activity strategies, this report presents two separate costeffectiveness
estimates:
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