In recent years, the reduction of freight truck trips has been a common policy goal. To this end, policies aimed at influencing load consolidation, load factors and increasing maximum truck weight limits have been suggested and implemented, resulting in higher gross vehicle weights. The purpose of such policies has generally been to mitigate congestion and environmental impacts. However, trucks cause most of the damage incurred by highways pavements. The supply chain associated with pavement maintenance and construction releases significant air emissions, raising the question of whether increased vehicle weights may cause unintended environmental consequences. This paper presents case examples with estimated emissions resulting from shifts in load consolidation and increased maximum weight. These examples indicate that increased load factors in local and long-distance freight movement can cause significant increases in emissions of certain pollutants. Emissions associated with pavement construction are also found to increase as a result of pavement design specifications that

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The question whether marginal cost pricing should be applied in the transportation sector has attained a great deal of attention during the last few years. It is argued that marginal cost pricing, or marginal social cost pricing – a term used when one wishes to emphasise that the pricing is applied by a government / regulator – would secure social efficiency by ensuring that each activity by each user of transport infrastructure would be extended to the point where the social benefit of the last unit equals the social cost. Otherwise, since marginal private costs and benefits can differ significantly from the corresponding social costs and benefits – due to various externalities and other market imperfections – the resulting market allocation would typically be inefficient. The MC-ICAM project will address issues related to the actual implementation of the pricing principle. It will investigate an implementation path of change – the transition path suggesting how to get from the current non-optimal situation with no marginal cost pricing to the optimal end state(s). The project will incorporate or cover: 1. all major modes (urban, interurban road, rail, air, water), and both freight and passenger transport;

www.elsevier.com/locate/resconrec Shipping news: the implications of electronic commerce for logistics and freight transport

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