The Fuel Tax and Alternatives for Transportation Funding Special Report 285 (2006) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix C Review and Synthesis of Road Use Metering and Charging Systems: Executive Summary
Appendix C Review and Synthesis of Road Use Metering and Charging Systems: Executive Summary
Pages 217-231
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From page 217... ...
Indeed, the occasional increases in state and federal motor fuels taxes in recent decades have fallen far short of keeping pace with the com bined effects of inflation and gains in fuel economy over the same period. On the other hand, annual vehicle miles traveled in the United States have continued to skyrocket for a wide variety of reasons, including population growth, increased affluence and vehicle ownership, greater participation of women in the workforce, and increasingly decentralized metropolitan land use patterns, among others.
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From page 218... ...
In response to these challenges, the Transportation Research Board convened a special Committee for the Study of the Long-Term Viability of Fuel Taxes for Transportation Finance. One of the many charges to the committee was to investigate the potential for a system of distance-based user fees [using recently developed electronic tolling technologies such as on-board computers, Global Positioning Systems (GPS)
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From page 219... ...
congestion tolls, weight-distance truck tolls, distance-based user fee proposals, and distance-based price-variabilization (e.g., insurance-by-the mile) studies.
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From page 220... ...
For this reason, there are occasional references made to relevant findings from such projects within the policy and political acceptance sections of the synthetic review. Most of these observations are drawn from the following projects, all of which have been opera tional for at least two years: · Facility congestion tolls: I-15 HOT lanes, SR-91 HOT lanes, Katy HOT lanes; and · Cordon congestion tolls: London, Singapore, Norway (Trondheim, Oslo)
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From page 221... ...
Note also that under the category of distance-based road user fees, several of the objectives (such as reducing demand for travel by increas ing its marginal cost or encouraging the adoption of lower emission vehicles TABLE 1 Policy Objective Summary WeightDistance Distance-Based Cost Policy/Pricing Objective Truck Tolls User Fees Variabilization Preserve revenue Primary Secondary Charge equitable costs Primary Primary Primary Charge external users Primary Secondary Enforcement Secondary Efficient regulation Secondary Reduce road wear Secondary Improve safety Secondary Secondary Optimize capacity Primary (Intl) Secondary Reduce demand Secondary Primary (Intl)
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From page 222... ...
. At finer levels of detail, the pricing schemes seek to dis tinguish between different road classes (e.g., to vary truck tolls based on highway versus nonhighway use)
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From page 223... ...
To meter road usage, several different technology configurations have been proposed, studied, or employed: · DSRC communicating with readers along the roadway: This is typically applicable for weight-distance truck tolls that apply only on highway links, where it is relatively easy and cost-effective to mount transponders on over head gantries. Given the impracticality of installing DSRC transponders throughout the entire road system, this option has not been proposed for full, networkwide pricing schemes.
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From page 224... ...
The primary concern has been to ensure that governments do not have unrestricted access to detailed travel records for individual drivers (this has been more of a concern for private passenger vehicles than for commercial trucking operations)
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From page 225... ...
About two-thirds of the case studies identified, including all of the weight distance truck tolls and several of the distance-based user fee proposals, were designed, at least initially, to be implemented for single jurisdictions. Over the longer term, however, there appears to be a high probability that many single-juris diction programs will evolve to include multiple jurisdictions.
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From page 226... ...
On the other hand, equity concerns almost always loom large for electronic tolling proposals, especially congestion tolls. This likely is due to the fact that they usually represent a "new" form of pricing (as opposed to a distance fee, which essentially would replace the existing gas tax)
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From page 227... ...
. In contrast to congestion toll proposals, equity issues are not usually raised with regard to weight-distance truck tolls, distance-based user fees, or variabilized insurance.
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From page 228... ...
· Effectiveness of the enforcement strategy: In many of the case studies reviewed, the effectiveness of the enforcement strategy was cited as a major issue for public acceptance; more specifically, users appear more likely to resent a new pricing scheme if they perceive that others may be able to cheat the system and evade payment. CLOSING OBSERVATIONS Of the many types of issues involved in our case studies of electronic tolling, three appear to exert the greatest influence on the prospects for the success of distance based user fees: (1)
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From page 229... ...
Institutional and technical implementation issues are also important, of course, but these details appear less likely to affect the technical and political feasibility of electronically based pricing programs. With respect to policy objectives, distance-based user fees can be designed to accomplish a wide array of goals, depending on the characteristics of travel that are metered or priced.
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From page 230... ...
In distance-based user fee proposals not involving congestion surcharges, equity concerns have been far less of a political barrier. But since one of the ultimate goals of many dis tance-based electronic tolling programs is to develop systems that eventually include both distance fees and congestion tolls, equity concerns may be raised subsequently for already established tolling programs.
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From page 231... ...
· Other factors influencing public and political acceptance: Along with equity and privacy, a number of other issues appear to be important with respect to building public and political support for new pricing programs such as distance-based user fees. Most notably, these include the severity of the problem to be addressed and the inadequacy of other solution strate gies, the degree of integration with other related policies (such as the pro vision of improved transit service)
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