Last January, Carmelton the company behind the Carmel Tunnels raised the tolls on its expressway by 16%, which led to a public protest by Haifa residents. Even the mayor, Yona Yahav, joined the movement and called for a boycott of the tunnels.
In the wake of the protest, Carmelton turned to the Samuel Neaman Institute and EcoFinance to conduct a study of the economic and environmental benefits of using the Carmel Tunnels.
The detailed report, which "Globes" obtained, compares the financial utility of a tunnel trip to alternative routes. The calculation considered gas prices and the time saved by each type of vehicle and the indirect costs of air and noise pollution. The researchers even quantified the costs on an industrial level.
Is it worth it for a private car to drive two sections of the tunnels? And is worth it for buses or trucks?
The findings of the study determined that during an average non-peak hour, the utility of using a private vehicle for one section amounts to NIS 5.8, while driving two consecutive sections is worth NIS 9.8.
The utility for a bus is NIS 84.3 for one section and NIS 146.6 for two, while the utility for a truck is NIS 22.1 and NIS 37.7, respectively.
For peak times, the values rise significantly.
The calculations can be used to determine the "real" cost of driving in the tunnels. The toll for a private vehicle (single section) is NIS 8.66, but its actual cost is NIS 2.86 when the aforementioned NIS 5.8 is subtracted.
The toll for a bus (single section) is NIS 25.98, but because of the NIS 84.3 in utility value, the bus technically saves NIS 58.3 leaving the mass transport vehicle as the real beneficiary of the tunnels.
EcoFinance CEO Lior Shmueli said, "This is the first calculation of its kind of the utility benefit for every type of vehicle as well as the market as a whole, with the residents of Haifa as the real winners."
He claimed "they also benefit from the indirect savings in air and noise pollution, which also have costs. Noise affects property prices and lowers the quality of living."
Shmueli and Prof. Ofira Ayalon further calculated the total savings from the tunnels' use in 2014 when compared to the most viable alternative NIS 126 million. Additionally, the time saved for the market totaled 1.7 million hours per year and the reduction of carbon-dioxide emissions was 14,000, similar to the electricity usage of 1,850 households in a year. The calculations used NIS 40 per hour as their base wage rate, though the average wage currently stands at NIS 35 per hour.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 19, 2015
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