Rail Noise‐Abatement Programmes: A Stated Choice Experiment to Evaluate the Impacts on Welfare

Abstract

On the current political agenda, which is characterized by a major effort to minimize environmental transport externalities, the railway is considered an important sector for policy intervention. For example, when compared with road transportation, the railway is associated with lower levels of air pollution emissions, lower risks of fatalities, and reduced traffic congestion. However, it is also associated with noise pollution, which in turn can generate significant, negative welfare impacts on the population. Against this background, policy‐makers have been adopting a wide range of instruments targeted at the reduction of rail noise. The economic efficiency of this type of policy intervention can be discussed in terms of its overall welfare impact, which in turn may be contained within a cost–benefit analysis of alternative noise‐abatement policies. This paper reports a monetary valuation study of alternative rail noise‐abatement policies along the Brennero railway in north‐east Italy. The valuation study is based on a stated choice questionnaire undertaken in the 12 municipalities of the province of Trento that are currently exposed to excessive rail noise levels. This market valuation technique has hitherto not been applied to value rail noise damage. The valuation results indicate that: noise abatement makes sense from an economic perspective as long as its cost is not higher than €1 432 900; and construction of trackside barriers at the maximum height of 8 m is not ranked as the preferred policy instrument.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to three anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier version of the manuscript. Roberto Camagni (Polytechnic of Milan, Italy) offered valuable feedback on past discussions. They also like to thank the Office of Statistics in Trento for its expert support in the design and administration of the survey. Finally, they thank the Trento Environmental Protection Agency for providing data on noise and acoustic maps.

Notes

1. In Italy, a decree of the Ministry of the Environment (DMA 29 November 2000), which is consistent with what is stated in the more recent Position Paper on the European Strategies and Priorities for Railway Noise Abatement (CEC, 2003), indicates that preference should be given to noise measures at the source (i.e. on the rolling stock and on the tracks) rather than to barriers and buildings insulation systems.

2. Steps 1 and 2 were carried out by the local Environmental Protection Agency. Noise modelling and simulation were carried out using Mithra software (developed by the Center for the Science and Technology of Building (CSTB), Grenoble, France).

3. Following the discussion of Bergstrom et al. (2004), the present stated choice survey also included an innovative payment vehicle based on a tax reallocation scheme. For the results of the tax and tax‐reallocation schemes, see Nunes and Travisi (2006).

4. Thanks are extended to Professor Carlos Martín (University of Las Palmas, Spain) for his relevant comments on the model specification.

5. All the indexes for the respondents and alternatives have been omitted.

6. The unit of analysis is the household. The respondent, i.e. the person who actually answered the survey question, is either male or female, and always reports data for his/her household.