Exploring the effects of carbon pricing on the decarbonization of freight transport in the Netherlands

Abstract

In 2015, the UN climate agreement was signed by the Netherlands, which has the central aim to “strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius” (UNFCCC, 2018). To be able to achieve this, “a reduction of at least 60% of GHGs by 2050 with respect to 1990 is required from the transport sector” (EC, 2011). This research focuses on three methods that were identified by Kaack et al. (2018) for the reduction of emissions in the transport sector: increasing the efficiency of freight vehicles, reducing the carbon content of fuel used to transport freight and shifting freight to low carbon-intensity modes. To be able to stimulate the freight transportation sector to the three alternatives, a pricing policy that includes the CO2 emissions of the modes is identified: carbon pricing (Beuthe et al., 2002). Current literature has studied the influence of a carbon price on the container freight transport in the Netherlands while focusing on the modal shift (Zhang et al, 2014; Zhang et al, 2015) or researched the effects of internalizing the external costs on the Belgium freight transportation network (Beuthe et al, 2002). Furthermore, the influence of a carbon price on the potential for urban freight electrification in Madrid was researched by Arroyo et al. (2019). This research contributes to clarifying the effects of carbon pricing on the Dutch freight transportation. As current studies mainly focus on either the effects on the modal shift or the effects on the use of alternative fuels, these do not consider a combination of the effects and do not take into account the increase in the efficiency of the freight vehicles. Furthermore, the current literature focuses on a particular niche market (e.g. only container or a certain region). This research takes a broader view and looks at the influence of the carbon price on all commodities that have an origin, destination or both in the Netherlands. The main research question of this research is: HOW CAN THE FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION NETWORK USE IN THE NETHERLANDS BECOME MORE SUSTAINABLE, CONSIDERING MODAL SHIFT AND ALTERNATIVE FUELS? Currently, most freight is transported by trucks, which is a more expensive mode but has a high network density and enables faster transportation as there is no need for transhipment between modes (Platz, 2009). Inland waterway (IWW) is the second most used mode for freight transportation in the Netherlands (CBS, 2019b). IWW is a cheaper mode, but the transport is dependent on the available ports in the waterways network and is a slow mode of transportation. Rail freight transportation is used the least in the Netherlands (KiM, 2016). The rail mode can be cheap, however transhipment is expensive. Next to that, the trains are dependent on the railways service stations and do not reach high speeds due to inefficiencies (Islam & Zunder, 2018; Janic, 2008). When looking at the emissions of the modes, a clear difference between the emissions is identified: trucks emit up to 2.5 and 5 times more CO2 than IWW and rail respectively (KiM, 2016). This results in an unsustainable distribution: the mode that emits the most emissions is used the most while the most sustainable mode is used the least.