Chapter 32: Winners and Losers in Transport Policy: On Efficiency, Equity, and Compensation

In many countries equity plays an eminent role in public debates on transport policies. This appears for example from the telling title of an EU green paper Towards Fair and Efficient Pricing in Transport (European Commission, 1995). For the USA, Delucchi (1997) notes that “society cares at least as much about equity, opportunity, and justice as it does about efficiency.” Another example is a proposal to increase the variable costs of car use and decrease taxes of car ownership in the Netherlands, which was predominantly presented as “fair” (Dutch Ministry of Transport, 2002) because it would mean that “those who travel much have to pay more.”