Title: Environmental and infrastructure payments and the future of road transports: case Tallinn-Warsaw

Authors: Olli-Pekka Hilmola

Addresses: Kouvola Research Unit, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Prikaatintie 9, FIN-45100 Kouvola, Finland

Abstract: Economic growth of East European countries has been remarkable in recent decade period, and it has been fuelled in transportation logistics side with the significantly growing use of road transports. This concerns mostly Poland and three Baltic states. In the face of new environmental and infrastructure payments there exist doubts whether road could still dominate rails and sea transports within transport of general cargo in longer distance (e.g., Tallinn-Warsaw corridor). In the special case of Baltic Sea Region, and particularly peculiarities of sea and rail, it seems that dominance of road will continue. This is caused by additional cost burden covered by these two alternative modes. So, amount of funds gathered through environmental and infrastructure payments increases, but most probably these alone will not change modal shares at all.

Keywords: transport modes; environmental costs; infrastructure costs; Baltic states; Poland; transport logistics; road transport.

DOI: 10.1504/WRITR.2013.053369

World Review of Intermodal Transportation Research, 2013 Vol.4 No.1, pp.55 - 72

Received: 04 Jul 2012
Accepted: 28 Nov 2012
Published online: 31 Mar 2014 *

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