Vehicle Mileage Tax

Maine Residents Offered $895 to Test Tax-By-the-Mile Scheme

July 15, 2009

Portland Press Hearld - Wanted: 250 Maine drivers willing to let a stranger put a black box under their dashboard.

The reward: $895 and the opportunity to speak their minds about the highway tax experiment to a researcher.

University of Iowa researchers are seeking 250 motorists in Cumberland, York and Sagadahoc counties willing to have a computer tracking system installed in their cars for 10 months. The system could someday be used to tax drivers according to the number of miles they drive, rather than the amount of gasoline they consume.

Portland is one of six cities picked for the research, which is designed to determine whether a mileage tax would work better than the gas tax to support the country’s highway system.

Advertising for volunteers in Maine will start at the end of the month, said John Kuhl, an electrical and computer engineering professor in charge of the research. The aim of the study is not just to see whether the technology works, but also to find out whether drivers would accept it.

The $16.5 million study for the U.S. Department of Transportation was authorized in 2005 by Congress, which like the Maine Legislature and other state lawmaking bodies, has been grappling with how to fund the nation’s aging highway system...

By-the-Mile Road Tax Could Replace By-the-Gallon Federal Fuel Tax

July 1, 2009

The Kansas City Star - The year is 2020 and the gasoline tax is history. In its place you get a monthly tax bill based on each mile you drove — tracked by a Global Positioning System device in your car and uploaded to a billing center.

What once was science fiction is being field-tested by the University of Iowa to iron out the wrinkles should a by-the-mile road tax ever be enacted.

Besides the technological advances making such a tax possible, the idea is getting a hard push from a growing number of transportation experts and officials. That is because the traditional by-the-gallon fuel tax, struggling to keep up with road building and maintenance demands, could fall even farther behind as vehicles’ gas mileage rises and more alternative-fuel vehicles come on line.

The idea of shifting to a by-the-mile tax has been discussed for years, but it now appears to be getting more serious attention. A federal commission, after a two-year study, concluded earlier this year that the road tax was the “best path forward” to keep revenues flowing to highway and transportation projects, and could be an important new tool to help manage traffic and relieve congestion.

The decision by the 15-member National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission was unanimous, which surprised Robert Atkinson, the group’s chairman. But he said it became clear as the commission’s work progressed that a road tax on miles traveled was the best option. “If you’re committed to the system being improved then it was a no-brainer,” he said.

The commission pegged 2020 as the year for the federal fuel tax, currently 18.5 cents a gallon, to be phased out and replaced by a road tax. One estimate of a road tax that would cover the current federal and state fuel taxes is 1 to 2 cents per mile for cars and light trucks.

The commission said work needed to start soon to prepare for a road tax. But more work has already been done than most people probably realize.

Oregon did a field test in 2007, concluding it was possible to collect a road tax. The University of Iowa’s Public Policy Center — with support from the Federal Highway Administration and 15 states, including Kansas and Missouri — began work a decade ago on how a road tax could be deployed.

Now the University of Iowa, with the help of a $16 million federal grant, is beginning the field test that will eventually include 2,700 vehicles in six states. The vehicles equipped with computers and GPS devices will keep track of the miles traveled and send the data through wireless technology to a billing center that will compute “simulated” tax bills.

“There is a lot of work nationally going on that is beneath the surface,” said Pete Rahn, director of the Missouri Department of Transportation.

Missouri, like the federal government and other states, has been watching revenues from the gas tax decline. Last year that revenue was down more than 3 percent, and so far this year it has declined a similar amount. The state’s highway budget was about to “hit the rocks,” he said, but federal stimulus funds gave it some breathing room.

Even when the economy recovers, the gas tax will remain under pressure. “The Chevrolet Volt won’t pay a penny of fuel tax,” Rahn said of the electric car that will make its debut next year.

Rahn, past president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, said some states have considered implementing a road tax without waiting for the federal government to act, but a national system would probably work best.

Privacy concerns have been raised, and federal legislation also could set limits or otherwise provide safeguards on all the data that could be collected from GPS devices in vehicles. The Iowa study is looking at ways to protect privacy...

A low-tech approach in collecting the tax could amount to an annual reading of each vehicle’s odometer. A high-tech approach would involve equipping cars and trucks with GPS devices and computers. The commission favors the higher-tech approach, in part, because far more can be done with it. For example, it could be tailored to help reduce traffic congestion by charging different rates throughout the day. A Brookings (bankster-funded) Institution study estimated that peak travel could be reduced up to 20 percent if the tax made it cheaper to travel outside of rush hour...