As a mass-transit-loving, short-commute-driving liberal, I can certainly get behind proposals like this. I just have a hard time believing they’ll ever see the light of day around here.
Texas is among a group of states researching how to replace the fuel tax with a fee based on the number of miles traveled — making every road a virtual tollway. Transportation officials from across the world discussed the concept here at last month’s annual meetings of the trade groups representing the highway and tollway industries.
Fees for miles traveled would be measured by Global Positioning System receivers embedded in vehicles. The system would track which roads a motorist uses so the virtual tolls could be distributed to the appropriate agency.
Each jurisdiction could set its own per-mile fee. Data would be downloaded from vehicles monthly for billing, or could be transmitted at service stations in lieu of the gas tax.
I don’t know about you, but I can already hear the black-helicopter crowd polishing their tinfoil hats at the prospect of government-embedded GPSes in their cars. Hell, I’m a bit squeamish about it myself.
Researchers love the idea that driving taxes could be adjusted to promote or discourage certain actions. The system could charge more per mile during peak hours, for instance, or add a surcharge for heavy trucks and sport utility vehicles.
Those promoting a mileage-based approach to highway taxes contend driving should be metered and billed according to use.
“Why shouldn’t transportation be seen as a utility like electricity, water, etc.?” Hal Worrall, a consultant for Transportation Innovations Inc., asked during a panel at the International Bridge, Tunnel and Toll Road Association conference. “It’s perceived as free in America and thus produces a large demand.”
David Forkenbrock, director of the University of Iowa Public Policy Center, has been working on a model for four years. His research is funded by 15 states, including Texas, and the Federal Highway Administration.
As more hybrid and alternative-power vehicles are built, Forkenbrock said, gas-tax collections will suffer.
“A tax at the point of purchase is inferior to user charges at the exact point of travel,” he said, explaining the growth of toll roads in recent years.
Squeamishness aside, this all makes sense to me. Why not make road users pay on a per-mile rather than a per-gallon-of-gas basis? If we can see – as we surely must have with the sales tax – that future trends will cause the revenues derived from that tax to go down, why not take steps now to correct for that so that we don’t face a crisis down the line? Again, I don’t think the political will exists to act on any of this, and there may well be valid objections that I haven’t thought of in my exhaustive thirty-second contemplation of the matter, but I don’t see how it hurts to talk about it.
UPDATE: Lots of good comments here, and also by Atrios. The privacy concerns are certainly valid (and I figure they’re a dealbreaker even before we get to questions of efficacy), as are concerns that any such technology could be defeated. I’m surprised that no one has brought up the example of London, where drivers are charged differing amounts depending on when and where they drive. They’ve managed to do that without forcing a new device into cars there as well.
It’s not clear to me that this is a loser from a conservation perspective. It seems to me that one intended effect of a miles-driven tax would be to encourage people to live closer to where they work and play. I’ve got coworkers who have 100-mile round trip commutes. I don’t care what car they drive, they’re using a lot of gasoline. If a mileage tax could be graded in the way that (say) home electricity usage is, so that you pay a higher amount the more you travel per day, this would be an improvement from a revenue-collection and public-policy perspective over a gas tax.
The devil’s in the details. That’s why I think it’s great to talk about stuff like this.
UPDATE: blogHouston notes that many of us already have GPS tracking devices in our cars – they’re called EZPass tags.
UPDATE: Sorry, London’s system does involve adding RFID tags to existing cars (thanks to Charles E in the comments). Still, it’s a useful real-world example.