This category focuses on a particular mechanism's ability to help achieve an efficient outcome in terms of both use of the system and investment as well as its ability to incorporate all costs, including indirect adverse impacts.
Promotion of Efficient Use (Consumption) and Investment (Production)—the extent to which the mechanism provides incentives for efficient use of the system by influencing travel choices and behavior and, in turn, efficient investment in response to the funding demand signals and based on transparent performance-based criteria.
Individual revenue mechanisms should encourage efficient system use to the greatest extent practical by influencing individual users' vehicle and travel choices and behavior, with charges that match the costs to use the system, including higher costs of traveling during the most congested periods and for roadway wear and tear. Encouraging efficient system use can in turn reduce the need for additional infrastructure investment. Revenue mechanisms that are tied more closely to system use also can promote investment decisions that respond more closely to higher levels of need, especially if these decisions are based on performance goals that are comparable across the various modes in the system. This is not to say that willingness of certain users to pay is the only investment decision factor. | Individual revenue mechanisms should encourage efficient system use to the greatest extent practical by influencing individual users' vehicle and travel choices and behavior. |
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Creates and/or Mitigates Adverse Side Effects and Enables Charges—the extent to which the mechanism causes and/or mitigates adverse side effects and can facilitate appropriate charges for such effects.
This criterion focuses on two aspects. First, it addresses the ability of an individual revenue mechanism to internalize any adverse side effects of the transportation investment being funded, such as pollution, noise, congestion (and associated time loss/economic impact), and other indirect impacts caused by either the revenue mechanism itself or the transportation investment being made. This requires users to pay not only system use costs but also costs imposed externally. Second, this criterion assesses whether a mechanism encourages unwanted behavior such as avoiding vehicle registration or deferring vehicle safety improvements. Achieving a high score on this criterion requires both the ability to accurately assess the costs involved and a mechanism that appropriately applies those costs to those paying the charge. A low score implies that the mechanism could potentially encourage unwanted behaviors.