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Germany's Autobahn Toll for Heavy Goods Vehicles after four Years: Experiences and Perspectives
(2009)
On January 1st, 2005, Germany introduced a road charging system for all heavy goods vehicles (HGV) using the country's Autobahn network (i.e. the country's main interstate highways). The introduction of this so-called Lkw-Maut (HGV toll) marked a watershed event in the history of Germany's transport policy as it represented the first ever deviation from the traditional approach of financing road infrastructures out of the general budget. In our paper we will first provide an overview of the current legal and institutional framework of the German Lkw-Maut regime. Then we will analyse its performance and shortcomings since its implementation in 2005, using a model which enhances the traditional theory of club goods by incorporating the relevance of the degree of rivalry for the efficient provision of road infrastructures.
Key words: Electronic road pricing, congestion charging, infrastructure planning
JEL codes: G 28, L91, L98
The market for voluntary carbon offsets, i.e. those outside the strictly regulated Kyoto framework for tradable carbon emission permits, is growing with a vengeance. With only six such organisations in the business in 2000, their number has virtually skyrocketed to more than 232 commercial as well as not-for-profit outfits today – the vast majority of which entered the trade only after 2005. This trend has not eluded the world of commercial aviation. By contrast, starting in the early millennium years, voluntary carbon-offsetting schemes were appeared to have become a serious concern for the top management of some of the world’s leading airlines. Carriers as diverse as Air Canada, British Airways, Ethiopian Airways, Qantas (incl. its subsidiaries QantasLink and Jetstar), Continental, Cathay Pacific, Japan Air Lines, Air France/KLM, the SAS Group, EasyJet and Virgin Blue, to name just a few, then began to actively encourage their passengers to pay for the ‘neutralising’ services of select carbon offset providers on top of the ticket price whenever they book a flight. Finally, also some large online travel agencies such as Expedia and Travelocity as well as leading car rental companies (AVIS) opted to invite their customers to purchase carbon offsets. However, as this chapter will demonstrate, both the economic efficiency and ecological effectives of voluntary carbon offsetting as a tool to address the challenge of climate change appear very limited.
The purpose of this chapter is to delineate and analyse current adjustments of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) in Germany in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on current data and official material, road infrastructure PPP was analysed, as demand for transporta-tion services is highly sensitive to fluctuations of overall economic activity. Accordingly, they do not only offer a good illustration of the challenges encountered by PPP operators in gene-ral but also – as road infrastructure PPP in Germany exist in different designs – important lessons may be learned with respect to their respective resilience in extraordinarily adverse economic conditions. One finding from the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany is that the case for public–private partnerships (PPP) become more compelling, also as an integral element of a large-scale reform package to massively improve the resilience of public service delivery to citizens and companies alike. Another important insight from the pandemic and the politico-administrative countermeasures is that massive pressure – both financial and in terms of the workload on the human resources employed – has been placed upon existing PPP, especially in critical infrastructures. The principal reasons are unforeseen or unexpected changes in user behaviour, affecting demand, and more difficult access to funding. These new insights demonstrate the relevance of anticipation of such events in the PPP contract, and the role of preparation for practitioners on both the private as well as the public side. Moreover, the findings provide leeway for further research on how the public administration, in particular in a federal multilevel system, can strengthen knowledge management and information exchange between single entities and stakeholders, and the role of PPP units as potential gatekeeper within this system.