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Tolling Points

Four Northeastern States Plan Mileage-Based Usage Fee Pilot Project

By: 
Bill Cramer
Category: 
Stories

The concept of mileage-based usage fees (MBUF) is beginning to make its way from the western United States to the east, with four states applying for federal funds to test the idea through the I-95 Corridor Coalition.

If it’s funded, the project will start small—with 50 volunteers each from Delaware, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, and “faux invoices” issued monthly to test public reaction to the concept. But the application is still a timely vote of confidence in user financing, from the region that will host IBTTA’s 2016 Summit on All-Electronic Tolling, Managed Lanes, and Interoperability in Boston next month.

Competing Realities

The coverage in the Washington Post points to the pilot as a way to bridge between two competing realities.

MBUFs are “unwaveringly unpopular,” according to the Mineta Transportation Institute, though public acceptance reaches 48% for a fee that varies according to a vehicle’s pollution output.

But “reliance on the gas tax as a major contributor to funding transportation is no longer a viable option,” in the words if I-95 Coalition Chair and Delaware Transportation Secretary Jennifer Cohan.

“In general, it just leaves a bad taste in their mouth when you mention the words ‘gas tax.’”

Increasingly, state highway officials acknowledge that something has to be done. And they’re looking to user financing options, from tolling to MBUF, to break the deadlock.

Seeing Is Believing

One of the hopes behind the pilot project is that familiarity with MBUF will increase support, just as it does for toll roads.

“The idea is to get folks comfortable that mileage-based user fees are a feasible, reasonable, and easy-to-use approach,” said Coalition Executive Director Patricia Hendren. The Post article goes through the questions that arise in any discussion of mileage-based charges—from privacy, to the bedrock fairness issue of how motorists can pay for the roads they use.

Of note to IBTTA members—if the project is funded, it will receive professional guidance from CH2M Hill engineer Louis Neudorff, who helped manage Oregon’s MBUF pilot. “You can drive three or four hours in [this] part of the world and go through three or four states,” he told the Post. But the key to success for any MBUF program is to offer customers a range of payment and tracking options.

“You cannot mandate GPS or, politically, this will never go anywhere. You have to have choices.”

The northeastern United States is positioning itself as a hotbed of innovation in transportation and tolling, and it will also be hosting IBTTA’s 2016 Summit on All-Electronic Tolling, Managed Lanes, and Interoperability in Boston July 24-26. If you still haven’

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