Road Usage Charges and Impacts on Rural and Disadvantaged Communities

Alan PhD Jenn

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

Abstract: This report examines the differences in what drivers would pay with a gasoline tax versus a revenue-neutral road user charge (RUC) and whether these differences are equitably distributed among rural vs. urban and disadvantaged vs. non-disadvantaged communities. The analysis uses vehicle registration data from the California Department of Motor Vehicles, vehicle attribute data from DataOne, and environmental and socioeconomic indicators from CalEnviroScreen. On average, a transition from a gas tax to an RUC would cause drivers in rural areas to pay less per mile and drivers in urban areas to pay more. This difference arises because vehicles registered in rural areas tend to have lower fuel efficiency than those in urban areas. However, the transition from gas tax to RUC would have a similar impact on average cost per mile for vehicles registered in disadvantaged communities (defined as the top 10% of census tracts in CalEnviroScreen) as in other communities.. This study indicates that RUCs are marginally less regressive than gas taxes.

Keywords: Engineering; Mileage-based user fees; Fuel taxes; Transportation equity; Rural areas; Underserved communities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-11-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env and nep-tre
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