England truck drivers have been pushing through a really rough time recently, after a new mutation taxa of COVID 19 being identified within the UK. Just shortly before the time of writing, France has closed the entry border from the UK via the English Channel Tunnel in response, causing great congestion on the highways of Dover. Although the French side soon re-opened its border from England after scrambled mutual negotiations, lack of COVID testing sites near Dover means that great amounts of trucks still have to wait almost indefinitely for a chance to get tested so that the driver and the truck can enter French border. What was once a routine delivery route now became probably one of the largest parking lots England has ever seen.

I would not call this a strict “externality” of road transportation, but it is indeed something great impacting the dynamics of road transportation, in the UK especially international cargo hauling. Truck drivers who have not yet set off for Europe are now reconsidering their destinations, and the highways leading to Dover are avoided by drivers of all kinds. If one is to create an “externality map” for road transportation and keep it updated on a weekly basis, the map these weeks would deviate greatly from previous normality. Unlike empty airspace discussed in last post, unprecedented congestion of heavy duty trucks on the highway raises concern for climatologists like me who looks at the externalities of spinning (or non-spinning) tires, what they carry, and where they are going. Let us just hope that evasion of certain highways by other  drivers may ease the pollution pressure near Dover.

Long term externalities rising from disruptions of long-haul cargo transportation on the road is rather unclear. However, researchers do observe positive externalities pushing the transportation sector closer to the 2 ºC global temperature rise goal (Sharmina et al., 2021). As a result of the effort to reduce cross-regional transmission of virus via road transportation, academics have welcomed the rise of forcing mechanisms pushing for scattered, regionalised supply chain systems that no longer rely on single national centres but multiple regional “commons” (Chopra et al., 2021).

References

Chopra, S., Sodhi, M., & Lücker, F. (2021). Achieving supply chain efficiency and resilience by using multi-level commons. Decision Sciences, 52(4), 817–832. https://doi.org/10.1111/deci.12526

Sharmina, M., Edelenbosch, O. Y., Wilson, C., Freeman, R., Gernaat, D. E. H. J., Gilbert, P., et al. (2021). Decarbonising the critical sectors of aviation, shipping, road freight and industry to limit warming to 1.5–2°C. Climate Policy, 21(4), 455–474. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2020.1831430