This paper evaluates household transport consumption inequalities in France and the UK, investigates their temporal dynamics and estimates the redistributive effects of taxes on various commodity categories. A decomposition by expenditure component of the Gini index is applied, using household-level data from repeated cross-sections of expenditure surveys spanning long time periods. The results highlight the effect of car social diffusion. The relative contribution of vehicle use items to total expenditure inequality decreases over time, thus reflecting the more and more widespread use of the car. Moreover, fuel taxes become regressive (i.e. they affect the poor more than the rich), while the progressive character of taxes on the remaining car use commodities weakens with time. Therefore equity issues should not be ignored when designing policies to attenuate the environmental impact of cars. Increasing car use costs, notably fuel prices, through an increase of uniform taxes would be particularly inequitable.
