[sustran] distance based fuel tax technology test

[Eric Bruun]

            Mileage Tax Road Tested 
           
           
           
           
                  Jul 20, 2004  
                  GPS World  
           
           
              
           
      Working under a grant from the Oregon Department of Transportation, two engineering professors at Oregon State University designed and demonstrated a GPS and wireless system for "vehicles miles traveled" (VMT) that could replace the state?s gasoline tax. The system calculates how many miles a vehicle has traveled since its last refueling, computes a fee, and adds it to the fuel cost while the vehicle is still at the fuel pump. 
      Watchdogs have already objected that such a system would charge the same mileage rate for gas-guzzling SUVs, super-efficient hybrid cars, and everything in between. Others have pointed to a potential threat to privacy. (Impetus for the project actually came from projections that increased fuel efficiency could reduce state revenues from gas taxes to the point, as early as 2014, that it could no longer maintain road infrastructures.) 

      On the plus side, using GPS in the on-vehicle device gives the capability to implement "congestion pricing" ? charging different per-mile rates based on roads or regions traveled, or times of day. It could also exclude miles driven outside state borders. 

      In a May demonstration, researchers David Kim and David Porter drove prototype vehicles through zones set up within the city of Corvallis to demonstrate how the system counts miles and then wireless incorporates the user fee into fuel purchases at test gas pumps. AFX Technologies International of Dallas, Texas, customized the in-vehicle units, based on its Mobile Minion asset tracking product, which uses Trimble?s Lassen SQ GPS module. 

      The VMT will start a pilot trial with 400 volunteer drivers in Eugene, Oregon later this year.  


       
           
      
     

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