Download or read book Potential Benefits of Mileage based User Fees to the Freight Industry and Industry Concerns written by Ferrol O. Robinson and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of funding surface transportation infrastructure through fees charged on miles driven has been receiving growing attention from transportation professionals and researchers in recent years. Highway funding in the United States has traditionally been done through user fees, most notably motor vehicle fuel taxes. However, there are growing concerns among some policymakers that fuel taxes are no longer adequate, sustainable, efficient, or equitable. Entities in the United States and abroad have conducted pilot projects or implemented mileage-based fees, including several specifically designed for heavy trucks. There are two major concerns related to truck travel: (1) heavy trucks consume a great deal of roadway capacity due to their size, operating characteristics, and annual miles traveled; and (2) roadway wear and tear caused by the combination of truck mileage and heavy loads is significant and disproportionate to the number of trucks on the road. The concept of mileage-based user fees has seen increasing support from a number of groups in recent years; however, it faces opposition from many in the general public and from the trucking industry. This paper is part of a larger effort exploring the benefits to the freight industry of mileage-based user fees, while highlighting industry concerns over its implementation.
Download or read book Potential Benefits to the Freight Industry of Distance based Road User Fees written by and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As vehicles become more fuel efficient, fuel taxes are producing less revenue for road construction, operations and maintenance. As a consequence, states are exploring replacing these taxes with other user-based revenue sources, such as mileage-based road user charges, also referred to as vehicle-miles-traveled fees. These approaches may also have the benefit of reducing highway congestion if pricing is varied by level of congestion. The commercial freight industry agrees that distance-based pricing, especially as it relates to congestion pricing, has system management and revenue benefits for transportation agencies but is skeptical about benefits to the industry and believes such fees will be more costly than current fuel taxes.
Download or read book Mileage Based User Fees for Transportation Funding written by Paul Sorensen and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2012-12-28 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This primer presents some promising and innovative mileage fee system designs and transition strategies. For states or localities that are considering a transition to mileage fees, awareness of these strategies can help determine whether shifting from fuel taxes to mileage fees merits further consideration. For jurisdictions already engaged in detailed assessments of mileage fees, these concepts can help reduce costs and build public support.
Download or read book A More Perfect User Fee written by Heath Hansen and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States is currently facing a highway funding crisis. Both federal and state transportation budgets are under mounting duress as road maintenance and construction costs continue to outpace revenues each year. While a number of factors contribute to this problem, one of the primary causes is the inherently flawed nature of gas taxes, which provide the vast majority of revenues for the nation0́9s surface transportation system. In response to growing budgetary shortfalls and the increasingly apparent shortcomings of gas taxes, state and federal policymakers have begun searching for an alternative approach to funding and financing roads. Recently, a concept known as a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) fee has gained popularity among transportation policy experts and policymakers as a potential replacement for the gas tax. Under a VMT fee system, drivers pay for their actual road use instead of, as now, for the motor fuel they consume. Although the concept is new and there exists very little real-world experience with a VMT fee, several pilot studies conducted within the last decade in the United States have demonstrated their potential as a viable, long-term solution to the nation0́9s road funding challenges. In this paper, I examine the concept of VMT fees and evaluate specific VMT fee systems that have been proposed as alternatives to the gas tax. I begin with an overview of the current gas tax system in the United States and then discuss its advantages and disadvantages as well as why it is not a sustainable funding mechanism going forward. In the second section, I examine the general concept of a VMT fee, including its potential benefits, costs, and the challenges associated with transitioning from the gas tax to a VMT fee. Section three outlines seven essential criteria that specific VMT proposals should meet in order to be considered a viable alternative. In the fourth section, I evaluate four different VMT fee proposals that have been 2 tested in pilot studies in the United States based on the six criteria spelled out in Section 3. In section 5, I compare and contrast the four proposals and discuss their relative advantages and disadvantages. Section 6 concludes with recommendations for implementing a VMT fee in the United States.
Download or read book Highway Trust Fund written by United States Government Accountability Office and published by . This book was released on 2013-01-16 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mileage-based user fee initiatives in the United States and abroad show that such fees can lead to more equitable and efficient use of roadways by charging drivers based on their actual road use and by providing pricing incentives to reduce road use. Mileage fees for passenger vehicles, however, continue to face significant public concerns related to privacy as well as cost challenges. Privacy concerns are particularly acute when Global Positioning System (GPS) units are used to track the location of passenger vehicles. Reliable cost estimates for mileage fee systems are not available, but implementing a system to collect fees from 230 million U.S. passenger vehicles is likely to greatly exceed the costs of collecting fuel taxes. Commercial truck user fee systems in Germany and New Zealand have achieved substantial revenues and benefits such as reduced road damage and emissions with fewer privacy concerns, but ensuring compliance in a cost effective manner presents trade-offs. Few commercial truck mileage fee pilots have been conducted in the United States, but efforts in two states suggest such fees pose fewer privacy and cost challenges than passenger vehicle fees. Mileage fee rates could be set to replace or supplement current Highway Trust Fund revenues. GAO calculated average mileage fee rates for passenger vehicles and commercial trucks needed to meet three federal revenue targets ranging from $34 billion (replace current federal fuel tax revenues) to $78 billion (increase spending to maintain existing system conditions and performance). To meet these targets, drivers of passenger vehicles with average fuel efficiency would pay $108 to $248 per year in mileage fees compared to the $96 these drivers currently pay in federal gasoline tax. These fees would affect users' costs differently based on each vehicle's fuel efficiency, because drivers of less efficient vehicles now pay more in fuel taxes than drivers of vehicles with greater fuel efficiency. However, like federal fuel taxes, mileage fees would comprise a small portion of users' overall fuel costs and thus only marginally increase users' overall transportation costs. A mileage fee for commercial trucks could also increase users' costs, particularly for larger trucks that log more miles. In 2000, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) estimated that heavy commercial trucks generally pay less in federal taxes than the road damage costs they impose. Adjusting mileage fee rates to account for vehicle road damage costs would increase rates for commercial truck users. However, FHWA's estimates may not reflect current conditions. Setting rates to cover these costs would require updated estimates of vehicles' responsibility for road damage. State departments of transportation (DOT) recognize the need for an alternative funding mechanism to meet future revenue demands, and many would support federal actions to evaluate mileage fees. Few states reported that they are likely to introduce such fees in the next 10 years, but more than half would support federally-led field tests of mileage fees for commercial trucks and electric vehicles. Although few electric vehicles are on the roads today, their numbers are expected to increase, and they do not contribute to the Highway Trust Fund. Without a federal pilot program to evaluate (1) options to more accurately charge commercial trucks and electric vehicles for their road use and (2) the costs and benefits of such systems, Congress lacks critical information to assess whether mileage fees for these vehicles could be a viable and cost-effective tool to help address the nation's surface transportation funding challenges.
Download or read book Mileage based User Fees written by Richard Tremain Baker and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Mileage based User Fees written by Matthew Bomberg and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Mileage based User Fee Policy Study written by Lee W. Munnich and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mileage-Based User Fee (MBUF) Policy Study Supporting Technical Information document is intended to offer necessary detail regarding the work performed and reviewed as part of the MBUF Policy Study. The document serves to complement the separate MBUF Policy Task Force Report; it summarizes activity within and inputs informing all phases of the MBUF Policy Study process, including findings from: Greater Minnesota listening sessions; 2011 MBUF Symposium in Breckenridge, CO; perspectives from national experts; national expert and transportation finance roundtable events; Internet panel survey of Minnesotans; and additional targeted outreach. The MBUF Policy Study was commissioned by the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) to identify and evaluate issues related to potential future implementation of an MBUF system in Minnesota. Under a potential MBUF system, drivers would be charged based on the number of miles they drive, regardless of the type of energy source used to propel the vehicle, instead of being charged by the gallon for fuel consumed in operating a vehicle. Over a period of approximately one year, the MBUF Project Management Team - comprised of individuals from MnDOT and the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, as well as consultants - secured valuable quantitative and qualitative policy feedback, drove completion of several deliverables including development of potential MBUF business models, and staffed a Policy Task Force.
Download or read book Jaarboek industriel ontwerpen Nederland 1990 written by and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book From Fuel Taxes to Milage based User Fees written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Comprehensive Equity Analysis of Mileage Based User Fees written by Justin David Carlton and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lack of sustainable revenue generation for transportation infrastructure has created a need for alternative funding sources. The most prominent of which is the Mileage Based User Fee (MBUF), where drivers would be charged based on the number of miles they drive, thus holding them accountable for their use of the roadway. While numerous equity related issues have been addressed, the interrelation of transportation taxation and expenditures on all levels of government (State, County, and Local) is not well understood. Using National Household Travel Survey data and information collected from over one hundred agencies, roadway taxation and expenditures were assigned to individual households in the Houston core based statistical area (CBSA). Using both Gini Coefficients and Theil Indices to analyze equity relationships, the research demonstrated that implementation of a MBUF would not have a pronounced effect on the current distribution of transportation taxation and expenditures, with the number of miles traveled and the total transit ridership remaining mostly unchanged. This also means that the equity of a MBUF is mostly equivalent to the current fuel tax. The relative winners of the current system are rural and high income urban households, while the relative losers are all other urban households. Increasing the MBUF to meet the Texas 2030 Committee recommendations would decrease the average benefit to taxation ratio, causing households to receive less than they pay into the system. Additionally, it would decrease the total number of miles traveled by 22.8% and increase transit ridership by as much as 10.2%. Still, equity of this scenario changed little from the equity of the current transportation funding system. However, excluding public transit expenditures resulted in a statistically significant and undesirable change in the Gini Coefficient, indicating that public transit has a positive impact on equity when considering the transportation system as a whole. Due to relatively flat rate taxes (vehicle registration, property tax, sales tax, etc.), the higher the miles driven, the lower the effective tax is per mile. When miles traveled are decreased by 22.8%, the effective tax per mile increases, which is the reason why the average benefit to taxation ratio was reduced. If transportation related taxation were to shift towards user based methods, then the benefit to taxation ratio should tend towards a value of one, indicating that all users receive exactly the value they pay for. If revenues are increased while the methods of taxation remain the same, low income urban households will be negatively impacted to the greatest degree. The electronic version of this dissertation is accessible from http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/152470
Download or read book Road User Charges Based on Mileage written by Jacqueline E. Russell and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A mileage-based road user charge would involve assessing owners of individual vehicles on a per-mile basis for the distance the vehicle is driven. Currently, federal highway and public transportation programs are funded mainly by motor fuel tax receipts that flow into the Highway Trust Fund (HTF). The tax rates, set on a per-gallon basis, have not been raised since 1993, and receipts have been insufficient to support the transportation programs authorized by Congress since FY2008. The long-term viability of motor fuels taxes is also questionable because of increasing vehicle fuel efficiency and the wider use of electric vehicles. Economists have favored the use of mileage-based user charges as an alternative to motor fuels taxes to support highway funding. This book examines consideration and viability of road user charges based on mileage."--Preface.
Download or read book Highway Trust Fund written by U.s. Government Accountability Office and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-08-03 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " Federal funding to build and maintain the nation's highways and bridges comes primarily from highway users through federal fuel taxes. These revenues have eroded due to improvements in vehicle fuel efficiency and other factors contributing to shortfalls in the Highway Trust Fund. Experts have proposed alternative means of raising revenues by charging drivers fees based on their miles traveled. Several states have tested systems that gather vehicle mileage and location data, which has raised privacy concerns. GAO examined (1) the benefits and challenges of mileage fee initiatives in the United States and other selected nations, (2) mileage fee rates necessary to replace and supplement current Highway Trust Fund revenues and the effect these fees would have on users' costs, and (3) state DOTs' views on future revenue demands and mileage fees. GAO reviewed five domestic pilot projects and programs in Germany, New Zealand, and the Netherlands; modeled mileage fees for passenger vehicles and commercial trucks; and surveyed 51 state DOTs. "
Download or read book Technologies and Approaches to Reducing the Fuel Consumption of Medium and Heavy Duty Vehicles written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2010-07-30 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Technologies and Approaches to Reducing the Fuel Consumption of Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles evaluates various technologies and methods that could improve the fuel economy of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, such as tractor-trailers, transit buses, and work trucks. The book also recommends approaches that federal agencies could use to regulate these vehicles' fuel consumption. Currently there are no fuel consumption standards for such vehicles, which account for about 26 percent of the transportation fuel used in the U.S. The miles-per-gallon measure used to regulate the fuel economy of passenger cars. is not appropriate for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, which are designed above all to carry loads efficiently. Instead, any regulation of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles should use a metric that reflects the efficiency with which a vehicle moves goods or passengers, such as gallons per ton-mile, a unit that reflects the amount of fuel a vehicle would use to carry a ton of goods one mile. This is called load-specific fuel consumption (LSFC). The book estimates the improvements that various technologies could achieve over the next decade in seven vehicle types. For example, using advanced diesel engines in tractor-trailers could lower their fuel consumption by up to 20 percent by 2020, and improved aerodynamics could yield an 11 percent reduction. Hybrid powertrains could lower the fuel consumption of vehicles that stop frequently, such as garbage trucks and transit buses, by as much 35 percent in the same time frame.
Download or read book Mileage Fees and the Highway Trust Fund written by Yoan Bergeron and published by Nova Science Pub Incorporated. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Federal funding to build and maintain the nation's highways and bridges comes primarily from highway users through federal fuel taxes. These revenues have eroded due to improvements in vehicle fuel efficiency and other factors contributing to shortfalls in the Highway Trust Fund. Experts have proposed alternative means of raising revenues by charging drivers fees based on their miles traveled. Several states have tested systems that gather vehicle mileage and location data, which has raised privacy concerns. This book examines the benefits and challenges of mileage fee initiatives in the United States and other selected nations, and discusses whether mileage fee rates are necessary to replace and supplement current Highway Trust Fund revenues and the effect these fees would have on users' costs.
Download or read book Highway Trust Fund written by United States. Government Accountability Office and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 75 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book From Fuel Taxes to Mileage based User Fees written by David D. Coyle and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 91 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two national commissions established by the U.S. Congress recommend replacing the current system of funding transportation based on fuel taxes with a new distance-based system of user fees ... While there have been discussions among many transportation leaders regarding why fuel taxes are no longer a good way of funding the transportation system, there is by no means a public understanding of why this is so.
