Anthony Perl, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Calgary

This presentation documented and quantified one element of the "external social benefits" arising from modal shift between domestic aviation and high-speed rail (TGV) services in France. Since the mid- 19805, there has been a clear decrease in aircraft movements between Paris and regional cities such as Lyons, Nantes, and Bordeaux, following the introduction of TGV service. This "TGV effect" has created significant changes in French domestic transportation patterns, and their associated environmental impacts.

The reduced cost of local and regional air pollution at French regional airports resulting from the TGV effect can be estimated by linking environmental assessment techniques that yield an emissions inventory for aircraft operations with economic cost evaluations of air emissions from ground based sources (e.g., road transport, industry, and agriculture). To highlight both the uncertainty that exists regarding the economic assessment of damages from air pollution's effects and the variation in "willingness to pay" for environmentally sustainable transportation, estimates are expressed as a range covering four possible scenarios. These scenarios differ along two parameters: rural versus urban impact of pollution and minimal versus potential preferences for environmental protection in a particular jurisdiction. Such an approach produces an estimate range that could be applied to other airports, thus allowing public officials to assess this dimension of the external cost savings associated with modal shifts, or other reductions in aircraft movements.

This presentation draws from: "The TGV Effect: A Potential Opportunity for Reconciling Sustainability With Aviation," by Judith Patterson and Anthony Perl, in World Transport Policy and Practice, Volume 5, Number 1, pp. 39 -45, and; "Pricing Aircraft Emissions at Lyon-Satolas Airport," by Anthony Perl, Judith Patterson, and Marc Perez, in Transportation Research Part D: Transportation and Environment., Volume 2, Number 2, pp. 89 -105.

Anthony Perl is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Calgary where he also directs the Research Unit for Public Policy Studies. He received an undergraduate honours degree from Harvard University, majoring in Government, an MA from the University of Toronto, specializing in Public Administration, and a Ph. D. from the University of Toronto in Political Science.

Perl has been a visiting scholar at the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques in Paris and a Chateaubriand Scholar at the Universite-Lyon 2 -Lumiere during the 1994.95 academic year. He has taught a graduate seminar on the economic and historical development of North American transportation infrastructure in France, and graduate courses on transportation and communications policy in Calgary, as well as undergraduate courses in Canadian Politics and Public Policy Analysis. Perl serves on the Boards of two Canadian non-profit organizations. He is Treasurer of the Centre for Sustainable Transportation in Toronto, and a member of the Board of the Van Horne Institute for International Transportation and Regulatory Affairs in Calgary.