ROAD PRICING IN URBAN HAZARDOUS MATERIALS TRANSPORTATION: A PRACTICAL ASSESSMENT

Many industrial production processes need inputs or generate by-products that pose potential threats to public health or the environment. Those products are called hazardous materials (hazmat). Those hazmat must be safely transported from their origin to destination (e.g. manufacturing/processing or treatment plants) where they are either processed or properly disposed. Unfortunately there are accidents that may result in hazmat spills exposing the population and the environment to the associated risks. Combining available data sources, we designed a methodology to estimate the two main components of the associated risks: the probability of an accident during hazmat transportation, and the consequences associated to such an event. These components allow the estimation of the externality (social cost) imposed by the traffic of hazmat on the society. This social cost can be internalized through an appropriate road price scheme. This paper presents a methodology to estimate the marginal cost of hazmat trips on a transportation network, based on the estimation of the probability of an accident involving hazmat as well as its associated consequence. The methodology was applied to the case of hazardous waste transportation in Santiago, Chile.