Health costs of automobile pollution

The methodology developed by the ExternE ( External Costs of Energy a) Proj ect of the European Commission is used to estimate the health costs associa ted with air pollution due to tail pipe emissions from cars. The analysis b egins with emissions data for several car types in the current fleet and fo r three driving sites: a trip in Paris, a trip from Paris to Lyon, and trav el in the rural southwest of France. Atmospheric dispersion and chemistry i s modeled, both at the local and the regional scale, including the formatio n of secondary pollutants (ozone as well as nitrate and sulfate aerosols). Health impacts are quantified using linear dose-response functions, based o n a survey of the epidemiological literature. The economic valuation is bas ed oil the willingness-to-pay to avoid a harmful impact; of particular impo rtance is the cost of a year of life lost (YOLL), here taken as 0.083 MEuro (derived from a much less than value of statistical life much greater than of 3.1 MEuro). Except for post 1997 gasoline cars whose emissions are very low, tl-le resulting damage costs per km are not much smaller than the pri ce of fuel, and the number of YOLL is comparable to the number lost by traf fic accidents.