Development and Application of External Costs as part of the Sustainability Assessment of Transportation Infrastructure

Development and Application of External Costs as part of the Sustainability Assessment of Transportation Infrastructure Infrastructures are characterized by strong interdependencies with the surrounding environment. A bridge for example is always integrated in a network. For a quantification of surrounding effects, the method of external cost calculation is already applied in practice. External effects like air pollution and noise are translated in monetary units. As a result they can directly be used in decision making processes. For an integration of this method in a sustainability assessment system the potentials and problems of the external cost calculation must be considered. This paper aims at providing an argumentation basis and gives recommendations for the design of a sustainability assessment system for transportation infrastructures.