At the California Sustainable Transportation Funding Workshop last fall, IBTTA caught up with two leading advocates for road user charging (RUC) as a promising highway financing option.
“Our vision for paying for the highway system in the long run is…about a user fee based on miles that will replace the fuel tax,” said Adrian Moore, Vice President of the Reason Foundation.
“In the short run, I think a lot of projects need to be built with tolling,” Moore said. And as RUC becomes more common, it will emerge as a leading option for public toll operators, private concessionaires, and departments of transportation that already collect tolls.
Meanwhile, vendor procurement for the United States’ first full-scale road user charging system is well under way. “The lessons learned so far are mostly policy-based,” said Jim Whitty of the Oregon Department of Transportation. “Citizens require choices. They want to access any kind of reporting technologies from the marketplace. They don’t want the government to choose any kind of box for their car.”
To learn more about tolling, Road User Charging or Vehicle Miles Traveled, plan now to attend IBTTA’s Transportation Finance and Road User Charging Conference in Portland, Oregon, April 26-28. Click here for program information! Conference registration opens in early February.
