EXAMINING COST EFFECTIVENESS OF MOBILE SOURCE EMISSION CONTROL MEASURES

Both technical and methodological issues need to be addressed in calculating the cost effectiveness of emission control measures. The seemingly simple cost effectiveness methodology requires making choices on whether or not to employ user costs or societal costs, manufacturer- or consumer-level costs, emissions reductions in non-attainment areas only or in both non-attainment and attainment areas, and annual or pollution-season emission reductions. Researchers must also carefully consider how to determine baseline emissions, whether to use multiple-pollutant emission reductions, and whether to apply emission discounting. Because there are various ways to address these issues and because different studies employ different assumptions regarding costs and emission reductions, the results of cost effectiveness studies can be significantly different and occasionally contradictory. This paper summarizes and adjusts the cost effectiveness results from completed studies, allowing determination of the relative cost effectiveness of key mobile source emission control measures. The paper also summarizes the cost effectiveness of stationary control measures, permitting a comparison of mobile and stationary control measures. The results of this study indicate that, except for alternative fuel vehicles (and considering a range of uncertainties), the emission control cost of many mobile source control measures is below $10,000 per ton of emissions reduced. The lack of a general protocol for cost effectiveness calculations may lead to seemingly similar studies having fundamentally different underlying assumptions. This issue of incomparable results needs to be resolved since policy debates often center on the differences in cost effectiveness results found in different studies.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/oclc/29485010
• Corporate Authors:

  Elsevier

  The Boulevard, Langford Lane
  Kidlington, Oxford  United Kingdom  OX5 1GB
• Authors:
  • Wang, M Q
• Publication Date: 2004-4

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: p. 155-169
• Serial:
  • Transport Policy
  • Volume: 11
  • Issue Number: 2
  • Publisher: Elsevier
  • ISSN: 0967-070X
  • Serial URL: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/issn/096707X

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air pollution; Cost effectiveness; Exhaust gases; Methodology; Pollution control; Research
• Uncontrolled Terms: Emission control measures
• Subject Areas: Highways; Research;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00974024
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS, ATRI
• Created Date: May 13 2004 12:00AM