This section contains research and development-related recommendations, the most critical of which support the transition from the current funding system to a new national mileage based fee system. Given the extent of institutional, technological, and practical challenges to effecting the envisioned transition in the required timeframe, investment in these recommended research activities, as well as those identified during the implementation process, is critical to a successful and timely transition.
III-1. Congress should immediately (i.e., in the next federal program reauthorization) authorize a comprehensive research and development agenda that includes investment in basic research, technology development, and pilot programs of mileage-based user fees.
A research program should be overseen by a multimodal body within U.S. DOT that combines technology, policy, tax administration, and systems expertise, similar to the agency created on a much smaller scale by the State of Oregon for its road pricing pilot project. Coordination will be required among several modal administrations (likely to include the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Transit Administration, and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration). An example of such a multimodal coordinating body within U.S. DOT can be found in the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) Joint Program Office for ITS Research.
An interdisciplinary approach is crucial to making a new comprehensive revenue system work. Specifically, Congress should:
• Create an expert independent advisory committee or policy oversight body to help review and advise on funding of R&D and pilot programs; to further explore policy issues; and to make specific recommendations to Congress regarding the Pest option(s), system design, required technology, and implementation plan. In essence, this body would advise on the federal government's activities to research, develop, and implement the new system, working in conjunction with U.S. DOT and other federal agencies as necessary and appropriate. This body should include representation from organizations focused on privacy and civil liberties to help ensure that protections for these are built into the system and technology from the beginning and not tacked on after the fact.
• Fund more expansive R&D, implementation experiments, and tests of new systems akin to past and current experiments conducted by the State of Oregon, the University of Iowa, and others. The first set of studies should be wide-ranging and experimental, testing various self-selected VMT fee processes. Subsequent tests would be more prescriptive to align with national study needs and facilitate the selection of a single interoperable system. Examples of necessary RD&D efforts, including potential pilot programs, include those related to the following:
• Necessary protocols and systems to accommodate concerns regarding personal privacy
• Impact of such a system on rural drivers who have no choice Put to drive long distances
• Options related to the method and point of collection of a national VMT fee
• Methods to ensure the feasibility of multiple forms of payment, including for those who do not have credit cards or who choose not to pay by credit card or via the Internet
• The administrative costs associated with such a national program
• Whether it is more logical to transition all vehicles simultaneously or some vehicle classes first as early adopters
• How to ensure individuals are not paying both the gas tax and the VMT fee under any phased transition approach and, relatedly, how to address implementation issues related to gas tax collection, which currently occurs on a centralized basis, termed "the Rack"
• Impacts of a voluntary or mandatory use of the system, recognizing the potential for voluntary programs to result in reduced revenues (at least in the short term) because those who volunteer may do so because they will (or perceive they will) pay less
• Determining whether different systems for different vehicle types will be necessary or appropriate, including pilot programs for automobiles and different classes of trucks
• How to provide the positioning accuracy and positioning availability necessary to support state, local, or private charges based on specific areas or lanes traveled (e.g., to distinguish between tolled and non-tolled lanes on a single facility such as in the context of high occupancy/toll lanes)
III-2. Congress should fund new research that assesses the true transportation cost impacts of various vehicle classes, including the costs of environmental impacts, as well as the behavioral response to cost (i.e., price elasticity) so that Congress can decide to what extent the future funding system should take these full costs into account and facilitate the transition to pricing strategies.
The Commission has emphasized that any funding sources should, when appropriate, promote efficient use of the transportation system and discourage adverse side effects by charging prices that include the costs of those side effects. Promoting efficient use of the transportation system generally requires a good understanding of the costs that different system users impose and whether those costs are wear-and-tear on the infrastructure, congestion imposed on other users, or environmental effects. A research program focused on these issues therefore is important.
At the same time, transitioning to a system that relies more on direct user fees than fuel taxes to fund transportation will be improved by a stronger knowledge base of how users respond to various pricing signals. Although social science research in this area has improved and continues to improve, more research is needed, including research into the response of travelers to different pricing signals and the impacts of pricing on various types of geographies and income groups.
III-3. Congress should require that U.S. DOT, in conjunction with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), develop best practices information for public-private partnerships and specifically guidelines that address transparency and accounting for public-private partnerships, including disclosure of facility financial operations by private entities- taking into account the need for proprietary information and individual state laws related to public records.5
The issue of transparency is very important to the success of public-private partnerships. The Commission addresses this issue in more detail in Chapter 7.
In addition to this specific recommendation, given the varying levels of sophistication and knowledge across state and local governments, Congress should encourage AASHTO and APTA to develop best practices related to assisting states and local governments in managing public-private partnerships more broadly.
III-4. U.S. DOT should provide technical assistance to support states' efforts to improve revenue forecasting for both federal and state-level revenue sources.
The current methodologies used for forecasting fuel tax and vehicle-related tax revenues are not well understood or documented. Better information about the data and methods used to support forecasts of future revenues from various sources would both improve transparency of federal highway and transit funding and provide state and local governments with better technical information to support forecasts from similar sources at the state and local level.