Mileage Fees: An Equitable and Financially Viable Alternative to the Gas Tax

Clare Nelson and Gregory Rowangould

Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series from Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis

Abstract: In the United States, mileage fees, or road user charges, are being explored as an alternative to motor fuel taxes, often called “gas taxes.” The search for alternatives is motivated by rising fuel efficiency standards and the increasing number of electric vehicles on the road. These factors have diminished the revenue-generating capacity of gas taxes. While mileage fees are a more stable and fuel-agnostic transportation funding source, they face criticism and low levels of public support due to concerns about costs, protection of drivers’ location and privacy, and perceptions that they would raise taxes on low-income and rural households. Researchers from the University of Vermont Transportation Research Center used data from over 360,000 Vermont vehicles to assess the financial and equity impacts of replacing the Vermont state gas tax with a revenue-neutral mileage fee of 1.5 cents per mile. The researchers then surveyed 623 car drivers in northern New England and 2,114 drivers around the US, before and after offering them an educational experience about mileage fees. The educational experience included videos and quiz-style questions. It covered reasons for a switch to mileage fees, fairness across income and community types, and a personalized cost comparison between the gas tax and mileage fee, based on each respondent’s vehicle and travel information. This brief summarizes the findings from that research and provides implications for the field. View the NCST Project Webpage

Keywords: Social and Behavioral Sciences; Mileage fees; gas tax; transportation funding; information choice questionnaire; equity; education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-03-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-pbe, nep-tre and nep-ure
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/88k6z1zq.pdf;origin=repeccitec (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt88k6z1zq

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series from Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lisa Schiff ().