JOINT SUBCOMMITTEE ON VMT REVENUES, ABE25(5), ABE10
91st Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, 2012
Joint Subcommittee Meeting: January 23, 2012
Presiding Officer: Edward J. Regan, Wilbur Smith Associates
Summary of Research Needs Related to VMT Fees
This summary reflects research needs and other critical topics identified during the 2009 Mileage-based User Fee (MBUF) Symposium held in Austin, Texas, the 2010 MBUF Symposium held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the 2011 MBUF Symposium held in Breckenridge, CO, as well as needs identified in various literature related to the topic of usage-based fee mechanisms.
This listing will be updated on a routine basis. To recommend study topics or issues for exploration, please contact Richard “Trey” Baker at r-baker@ttimail.tamu.edu.
Implementation
What is the most likely implementation pathway? Does it begin at the state level or the national level? Does it begin with mandatory participation by users or can voluntary participation be accommodated?
Mileage fees are often positioned as a replacement to the fuel tax. However is that the best course of action? What about replacing registration fees, or levying mileage fees initially on electric vehicles only?
States and regional entities will want to examine mileage fees from their own unique perspectives. To the extent that mileage fees are a relatively new topic there may not be an immediate need for coordination. However, at what point in the development process does coordination become crucial? Where should coordination efforts should be centered and who should lead?
Mileage fee development is being pursued at the state level, and many feel that federal involvement is, at some point, a certainty. However, local entities have had success in passing smaller scale tax increases for the funding and financing of transportation infrastructure development. Does it make sense to examine local avenues for mileage fee development? How can mileage fee pilots and evaluations be carried out at the local level?
To what extent are existing local, state and federal entities positioned to administer a mileage fee system?
Private entities are likely to play a substantial role in numerous aspects of mileage fee implementation. What are those roles, and how should implementing entities pursue private sector participation?
If mileage-fee development continues to occur at the state level without significant federal participation, then what are the best strategies for facilitating interoperability between state systems?
How should interoperability between states and/or local entities be facilitated?
What is the appropriateness of various mileage-based user fee system architectures for application among various types of local and state jurisdictions?
Assess the potential for veto rights, national preemption and imposition of standard practices and limitations on state and/or locally developed mileage-based fee systems.
Determine the appropriate model for potential interstate or inter-jurisdictional coordination of mileage fee system development in the absence of federal oversight.
Determine to what extent system goals outside of revenue generation, such as congestion mitigation or environmental mitigation, will require the cooperation of subordinate state and local agencies. Determine what concessions will need to be made to these entities.
Determine the appropriate method by which excess revenues generated under pricing applications outside of pure revenue generation (such revenue derived from congestion pricing) should be allocated.
If a federally administered mileage-based fee system is to be pursued, then what is the logical system, in terms of potential funding formulas, etc., for allocating revenues generated under the system back to subordinate state and local transportation authorities?
Assess how differences in state regulations with regards to public private partnerships would affect the ability of private entities to participate in the development of mileage-based fee systems.
Public Acceptance
Where are the “champions” for transportation funding reform and mileage fees specifically? Who should the research community and elected officials be reaching out to in order to draw attention to the issue?
Where is the “low hanging fruit” in terms of educating the public about threats to transportation funding? Are there basic elements of the crisis that the public can be educated on?
To what extent is the public willing to accept mileage-based user fees as a mechanism for addressing policy issues outside of revenue generation such as congestion relief and air quality?
How can prior and ongoing mileage fee pilots be leveraged to increase public support for mileage fee implementation?
What sort of market research and other attitudinal data collection efforts can federal, state and local entities undertake to better understand public attitudes with regards to transportation funding and financing and mileage fees?
Outside of the general public, what other transportation system stakeholders should entities pursuing mileage fees approach for input? Are there groups outside of the transportation industry, such as financial and legal professionals, that should be involved?
How can an effective public dialogue, particularly one aimed at addressing erroneously held assumptions, be best developed and undertaken?
How can technical topics such as marginal cost pricing be packaged for the public in order to increase public understanding of the burden imposed on the transportation system by road users?
How does public acceptance vary between implementation configuration with regards to the compliance cost for the user as well as the implementing entity? What sort of tradeoffs are the public willing to accept in terms of administrative and compliance costs for systems that provide benefits outside of revenue generation?
What are the public’s expectations for privacy protection for technology intensive mileage fee systems? To what extent do those expectations vary from technology, particularly those utilized for data generation, transfer, management, invoicing and payment?
What is the level of acceptance for various rate structuring scenarios? How can discounts be applied be applied to increase public acceptance?
What are the public’s expectations in terms of the accuracy and reliability and any technologies deployed in support of a mileage fee system?
The deployment of mileage fees will likely require implementing entities to illustrate how such a system will be an improvement over the current system for road users. How can this “value proposition” be better defined and marketed?
Economics, Equity, and Public Policy
What sort of objectives can a mileage fee system achieve outside of revenue generation and how effective are the various implementation configurations under consideration at achieving those objectives?
To what extent will the imposition of a national mileage fee system affect the US’s economic competitiveness on the world market? How would a state-based fee system affect state level economic competitiveness?
There is a need to evaluate the efficiency, equity and sustainability of the fuel tax in comparison to mileage-based fees. This evaluation could synthesize available data from pilot tests and MPO simulations on mileage-based pricing and its affect on travel and could aid in the development of demand equations or curves applicable to all forms of mileage-based pricing for national discussion.
Develop a central model analysis capability with a specific focus on transportation pricing.
What are the equity impacts of various rate structuring alternatives? How do those structures compare to the current fuel and vehicle registration fee system in terms of equity?
How do various implementation configurations vary in terms of their equity impacts among rural versus urban and suburban road users?
Develop a framework for decision-makers about the allocation of net revenues from user fees. The framework should integrate economic theory, potential transportation solutions, and political reality into the decision-making process.
What are the effects of various forms of road pricing on traffic diversion and patterns of VMT? What would the resulting consequences be for state or national implementation of mileage fees?
Develop a toolbox for dealing with the public’s objections to charging different congestion prices for similar facilities in different locations.
How do fuel prices affect VMT and economic growth and development? What are the long term implications for mileage fee deployment?
There is no comprehensive risk assessment with regards to mileage fee implementation. How should this analysis be pursued?
Pricing and Land Use
How can the conclusions built into existing MPO models concerning the relationship between transportation cost and existing land use, density, and centralization be synthesized for use in a mileage fee system?
Develop models of the impact of flat environmental fees on land use. Expand these models to reflect environmental pricing on a vehicle-specific basis.
Expand the synthesis studies on congestion pricing and traffic diversion to describe changes in land use that might occur as a result of diverted traffic from a mileage fee system with variable rates by facility.
Support efforts to improve modeling of the effects of transportation pricing on patterns of land use. This may be folded into the central model analysis capability of USDOT.
Conduct an assessment of potential cross-jurisdictional effects on traffic and land use so as to determine the appropriate role of various governmental actors at the federal, state and local level. This assessment should account for the fact that jurisdictions adjacent to an implementing entity may not opt to deploy a mileage-based fee system. The assessment should also account for differences in pricing policies and administrative structures between adjacent jurisdictions that do implement mileage fee systems.
Technology
Many implementation pathways envision the use of multiple technology platforms that provide road users options in metering technologies. How robust are some of these “off-the-shelf” technologies, such as smart phones, in terms of their ability to reliably and accurately assess road usage?
Conduct pilot projects to test multiple technology platforms with possibilities for bundled or value-added services. Pilot projects should seek to involve private entities, such as automobile manufactures and various technology vendors, as well as the tolling industry.
Technology standards will be a key requirement for the deployment of wide area charging systems, particularly those that cross jurisdictional boundaries and require coordination among numerous implementing entities. How should the process of standards development be structured? Who leads this effort?
“Thick” client charging configurations are viewed as better addressing privacy concerns by keeping data processing functionality primarily within the vehicle. However, “Thin” client configurations may be better at providing value added services and generating data for use by transportation planning agencies. What other tradeoffs are associated with each configuration? What are the differences in operating costs between thin and thick client configurations?
What are the implications of the gradual move to cloud-based computing platforms for mileage fee implementation?
Conduct an assessment of various technology applications so as to develop a strategy for seamless deployment of new technologies as older applications become obsolete. The assessment should include a determination of which technologies have reached maturity and which are still evolving.
Determine whether there are technologies other than GPS, which comes at a potentially high cost in terms of public acceptance, that are capable of delivering the same types of services (such as zone delineation).
Conduct an assessment of the security of various technology applications in terms of protecting driver information and providing security from threats external to the system (such as “hacking”). This assessment should take into account technologies used in both on-board units and various other data collection sections such as those potentially located in service stations or roadside equipment.
Conduct an assessment of various technology applications in terms of their ability to accommodate changes in jurisdictional boundaries and rate tables once a mileage fee system is implemented.
Determine the ability of various systems (especially those that would charge on a “zone” basis) to delineate between travel on public roads and travel on private property.
Assess the ability of various technology configurations to apply dynamic congestion pricing. This assessment should include an examination of potential enforcement and auditing issues.
Assess the potential for implementing a system with multiple data uploading options (such as at home, DMV office, fuel stations, roadside equipment) and fee payment options.
Determine appropriate charging system for motorcycles, trailers and boats, and light commercial vehicles.
Conduct a more in-depth and robust analysis of potential system costs with regards to the technologies under consideration.
Should multiple firms or a single firm be engaged to provide technology options? How would certification of the technologies provided occur?
