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| Social Cost of Alternative Land Dvelopment Scenarios (SCALDS) | Social Cost of Motor Vehicle Use |
The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) and the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) encourage full consideration of all social, economic and environmental impacts of transportation decisions. To assist planners in understanding the full social costs of motor vehicle use, FHWA sponsored research by Dr. Mark Delucchi of the University of California at Davis.
Dr. Delucchi estimates that, at the national level, total social costs of motor vehicle use amount to $1.7 trillion to $3.3 trillion annually. By comparison, he estimates that the public sector share of these costs, for infrastructure and services, amounts to $131 billion to $247 billion. Total social costs are classified into six groups: (1) explicitly priced private sector costs, such as vehicle operating costs; (2) personal non-monetary costs, such as travel time; (3) bundled private sector costs, such as parking provided free to commuters; (4) public sector costs, such as road construction and maintenance; (5) monetary externalities, such as lost wages due to incapacitation from accidents; and (6) non-monetary externalities such as air pollution.
While Dr. Delucchi’s estimates of social costs are significant, FHWA has done other studies which show that, at the national level, social benefits from transportation investments are equally impressive. A study by Dr. Ishaq Nadiri showed that highway investment is the second most significant contributor to U.S. productivity. Dr. Nadiri estimates the annual rate of return for non-local highway investment at 16% in the decade of the eighties, compared with an 11% rate of return for private capital.
In continuing work, Dr. Delucchi will be developing marginal social cost functions and estimates for use in transportation planning and evaluation tools such as FHWA’s Surface Transportation Efficiency Analysis Model (STEAM), the ITS Deployment Analysis System (IDAS), the SCALDS model (see Transporter, October 1998), and the Federal Highway Cost Allocation Study. In continuing efforts by FHWA on tools to estimate economic benefits from transportation at the metropolitan level, FHWA will be sponsoring a symposium on the subject by the Eno Foundation.
Dr. Delucchi’s research has been published in FHWA’s Metropolitan Planning Technical Report No.10 "The National Social Cost of Motor Vehicle Use", FHWA-PD-99-001, June 1998. Copies of the report can be obtained via fax request to FHWA’s Subsequent Distribution Office (fax no. 301-386-5394). The report may also be downloaded (Word 97, Adobe PDF) from the web site www.fhwa.dot.gov/scalds.html. For more information on this project or the continuing research effort, please contact Patrick DeCorla-Souza at FHWA by e-mail at patrick.decorla-souza@fhwa.dot.gov.
Last updated August 11, 1999
