Accessibility evaluations of the proposed road user charge (RUC) program in California

Shailesh Chandra, R. Thirumaleswara Naik, Manoj Venkatesh and Abhisek Mudgal

Transport Policy, 2021, vol. 113, issue C, 12-26

Abstract: With a recently concluded pilot program in the State of California, road user charge (RUC) was explored as an alternative means of transportation funding. The goal was to gather public opinion, address privacy and data security concerns. The pilot program was meant for the future implementation of RUC in the State. However, the impact of RUC on travel demand changes impacting California's industry sectors was not explored or probed. It is expected that by 2020 or later, RUC could have the potential to be implemented in the State causing some initial mode shifts or reduced number of trips made by private vehicles to minimize the cost of travel. This could have a potential impact on employment-based trips to industry sectors of California. Therefore, this paper explores the effects of RUC on the ‘attractiveness’ of four key industry sectors of the State using potential accessibility changes. The changes are evaluated from the RUC implementation for the year 2019 using the year 2013 as the base year. The four key industry sectors used in the evaluation are (i) Manufacturing, (ii) Retail Trade, (iii) Health Care and Social Assistance, and (iv) Accommodation and Food Services. In this evaluation, four vehicle fuel-types are considered, namely gasoline, compressed natural gas (CNG), diesel, and electric for California's rural and urban counties. On average, the percentage change in potential accessibility was found to be largest for counties for the Health Care and Social Assistance industry sector across all fuel types for both rural and urban counties in California. This indicates that the commuters from this industry sector would experience the most considerable benefit with RUC implementation. The lowest average percentage potential accessibility change was observed for the Accommodation and Food Services. This sector's labor force would be the least affected by the RUC implementation for the four industry sectors analyzed.

Keywords: Manufacturing; Employment; Road user charge; Retail trade; Gasoline; Electric; Accessibility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2020.11.014

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