Overview
The Working Group's objective has been to set out a development path leading to a mechanism for funding transport infrastructure services that in socio-economic terms is efficient, transparent and fair. The attainment of this objective will at once bolster the efficiency of the whole transport system and ultimately enhance the well-being of individual citizens, business companies and the public sector.
The work was carried out in a working group assigned by the Ministry of Transport and Communication Finland. The Working Group looked into questions concerning the funding of the transport infrastructure and drafted a proposal for a stepwise path to developing the funding of transport infrastructure services. The Working Group has focused primarily on the funding of services intended for road and street traffic, but funding for rail traffic has also been discussed.
Funding
Results
Policy implications
In its development proposal for the funding of transport infrastructure services, the Working Group has adopted a stepwise model in which the preceding stages provide the foundation for implementing the subsequent stages. The stepwise model is applied primarily to developing the funding of road traffic: from taxes aimed at steering behaviours and from the development of budgeting for basic maintenance of transport infrastructure, the next step is to proceed to tax-like charges and ultimately to pricing based on geographical positioning.
The funding of rail infrastructure services will only be developed in the first stage. It is estimated that the whole development path can be covered within the space of some 15 years. The Working Group's proposal is based on the assumption that fiscal taxes will be substituted by new fixed and variable charges without any significant change in the overall burden placed upon the transport service user.