Freight transport is a major source of environmental and health problems in many countries. (An excellent overview of the issue is the Report “Safe and Sustainable Freight Transport – Our Common Challenge” published by the European Federation for Transport and Environment: )
In 2006 the Clean Air Action Group (CAAG) started a nation-wide campaign to raise public awareness about the damages and costs caused by heavy trucks, and about the possible solutions. The final purpose of the campaign is to have the external costs of road freight transport internalized by a kilometer-tax, and the revenues gained in this way to be partly used to enhance freight transport on railways.
Heavy trucks damage the roads very seriously: one heavy truck causes as much damage as 100,000 cars. In turn the worn-away roads cause even greater damage to all vehicles. Air pollution and noise originating from heavy trucks is also a major environmental problem in Hungary. Many accidents are also caused by heavy trucks. Practically every day one can read in the Hungarian press about the severe accidents in which these vehicles are involved. About 10 percent of the traffic accidents are caused by truck drivers, and these are generally the accidents with most injures, deaths and material loss.
The campaign is made possible by the generous grant of the Oak Foundation.

• Shifting freight from truck to rail, based on Hungary’s experience
• Update about the events of the campaign (October, 2006)
• English text of the booklet “Freight: from Heavy Trucks to Rail”
• Successful conference on heavy truck traffic - Budapest, 15 December 2006
• Response to the consultation on the internalisation of external costs