2012 MATC Fall Lecture Series: Paul Hanley

Larissa Sazama Author

11/08/2017 Added

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2012 MATC Fall Lecture Series

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[00:00:00.291]Welcome to the second
[00:00:02.450]Mid-America Transportation Center Fall seminar series.
[00:00:06.434]Today we have Paul Hanley from the University of Iowa
[00:00:09.102]talking about funding for transportation.
[00:00:12.472]Paul is the Director of the Transportation
[00:00:14.952]Policy Research Group and Associate Professor
[00:00:17.942]in Civil and Environmental Engineering, so Paul, thank you.
[00:00:21.139]Thanks, Larry, all right, first of all,
[00:00:23.957]you guys gotta come closer to the table.
[00:00:26.541]And second, you all have to take out a piece of paper
[00:00:30.343]and pencil or pen because this is gonna be interactive.
[00:00:33.564]You're gonna have to answer some questions.
[00:00:35.753]Anybody who is out viewing this on the web,
[00:00:41.121]I'll ask the same thing.
[00:00:50.213](mumbling)
[00:00:56.297]You want me to use the mic?
[00:00:59.827]All right, so if the audio is kicking in...
[00:01:06.550]Would it be better if I used the handheld?
[00:01:08.449]You might have to.
[00:01:17.680]Okay, how's this, better?
[00:01:22.049]Okay, so today's topic, Current and Future Alternatives
[00:01:26.013]for Funding of Surface Transportation.
[00:01:28.114]So let's kick this off by, let me ask you,
[00:01:32.225]so how do we pay for roads and mass transit
[00:01:34.562]here in our nation?
[00:01:37.549]Any ideas?
[00:01:41.046](laughing)
[00:01:42.305]Well, we could jot them down,
[00:01:45.267]but let's go through straight math.
[00:01:55.622]Let me get...
[00:02:09.037]Is the volume going, oh, hold on.
[00:02:42.881]All right, well since I know what's on the video,
[00:02:45.069]I'll tell you what they're saying.
[00:02:46.431](participants laughing)
[00:02:47.799]All right, so he opens up by saying,
[00:02:50.444]good question, I don't know.
[00:02:53.244]She says, I think maybe sales tax, property tax?
[00:02:57.482]Out in Colorado, what we have is
[00:02:59.515]something called a road tax.
[00:03:01.797]Even got him scratching his head there.
[00:03:04.569]And this last gentleman says,
[00:03:07.452]well, I think there's something about
[00:03:09.316]registrations and licensing fees.
[00:03:11.730]And she's not really certain at all.
[00:03:14.702]So.
[00:03:18.404]Pretty much what they laid out there
[00:03:20.179]is what's in this shot here.
[00:03:22.926]They're all referring to taxes.
[00:03:25.254]And yes, this is how we pay for our surface transportation
[00:03:28.683]is a series of taxes.
[00:03:30.917]The one that we're most familiar with is the fuel tax.
[00:03:34.605]So if you look down at
[00:03:37.965]my left is the excise tax.
[00:03:41.039]So you have fuel tax, which is diesel fuel
[00:03:44.258]as well as gasoline.
[00:03:47.049]And there's other types of excise tax
[00:03:49.774]that both the federal and the state government charges,
[00:03:53.465]and that is, every time you buy a new pair of tires,
[00:03:56.191]set of tires,
[00:03:58.319]you're actually paying it to the road fund.
[00:04:03.964]And then we take a look at different levels of government,
[00:04:07.290]we have sales tax, we also pay for the system through tolls,
[00:04:12.012]and then we have the property taxes
[00:04:13.823]that are on your registration, so on the vehicle itself,
[00:04:18.252]on title and licensing fees,
[00:04:20.575]as well as real estate property tax.
[00:04:24.035]So let me just take this and break this down into
[00:04:26.891]a little bit more of a structure for presentation today.
[00:04:30.982]In transportation, when we talk about funding,
[00:04:34.412]we generally look at this in two areas.
[00:04:37.327]Funding's broken down into the revenue side
[00:04:39.722]as well as the finance side.
[00:04:41.784]Revenue side, how about if we think about this as
[00:04:44.778]your weekly or monthly paycheck?
[00:04:47.278]It's the cash that comes in that you get to spend.
[00:04:50.080]Where the finance side is more like when you go out
[00:04:52.672]to get a car loan or you mortgage your house.
[00:04:55.114]You're borrowing money to spend today,
[00:04:57.748]but you have to pay it back over time.
[00:05:00.928]So today, what I want to do is really
[00:05:03.151]just wanna be focusing on the revenue side
[00:05:07.303]of our funding equation.
[00:05:10.057]So remember this diagram again?
[00:05:12.335]So how about if we take this apart
[00:05:14.311]and look at it from a jurisdictional perspective,
[00:05:18.274]federal, state, and local?
[00:05:21.256]So if we start with the federal government,
[00:05:24.264]the bulk of the money that comes in
[00:05:25.713]to pay for the surface transportation,
[00:05:28.813]and when I say surface transportation here,
[00:05:30.990]what I'm referring to is are the roads, the highways,
[00:05:33.962]as well as transit, okay?
[00:05:36.051]What's not included is aviation or any of the waterways,
[00:05:40.800]shipping, the inland waterways type.
[00:05:43.787]The federal government, we have an excise tax on fuel,
[00:05:47.460]and I'll ask you this in a minute.
[00:05:50.498]We all know that we pay both,
[00:05:52.337]the federal and state fuel taxes, right?
[00:05:55.385]So how much do we actually pay per gallon?
[00:05:59.477]Does anybody know, federal, federal rate?
[00:06:01.505]43 cents.
[00:06:02.776]No.
[00:06:05.486]Okay, this is where you get to write it down,
[00:06:07.289]'cause there's some more slides that come up
[00:06:10.223]to see how good you are at guessing these.
[00:06:13.464]So, federal government,
[00:06:16.061]bulk of the money comes in through fuel tax.
[00:06:19.980]State level government,
[00:06:22.500]we rely a lot on fuel tax, on the excise taxes.
[00:06:26.851]States also rely on tolling.
[00:06:29.985]They rely on property tax, in this case,
[00:06:32.528]on the registration and titles and licensing.
[00:06:34.850]How many people have boughten a car recently,
[00:06:38.266]and if you're at the dealership,
[00:06:39.957]before you take the car off the lot, they always say,
[00:06:42.686]well, you have the title and licensing fee
[00:06:45.382]and we'll do that for you
[00:06:47.293]and charge you couple hundred dollars.
[00:06:51.961]Bring it down to Iowa, specifically.
[00:06:55.972]We have a very high registration
[00:06:59.016]rate for our vehicles.
[00:07:00.790]They're counted as personal property,
[00:07:02.938]so they're taxed as personal property for registration.
[00:07:09.277]States also look at general funds revenue.
[00:07:12.402]General funds is the money that comes in
[00:07:15.138]through things like personal income tax,
[00:07:17.701]as well as corporate taxes.
[00:07:20.265]Okay, and then we have on the local side,
[00:07:23.322]oh, and before I move off of state,
[00:07:25.233]state also relies on sales taxes.
[00:07:30.617]Moving to the local,
[00:07:32.209]so this is, if you look at this as a county
[00:07:35.450]or your city that you live in,
[00:07:37.661]where does money, revenue, come for funding the local?
[00:07:42.492]Most of it is from the sales taxes.
[00:07:46.489]The vast majority, though, is from property tax,
[00:07:49.157]tax on improved property, so taxes on the land,
[00:07:53.080]as well as any structures on the land itself.
[00:07:56.674]So these are the main parts of
[00:07:59.547]where the money actually begins.
[00:08:03.900]Before I leave this slide,
[00:08:05.536]what I do wanna point out is,
[00:08:07.958]as we move from the top of the slide down to the bottom,
[00:08:10.951]we're moving more away from a user fee concept,
[00:08:14.722]where you're actually the only paying that tax
[00:08:18.534]if you're using the system.
[00:08:20.394]So think about that.
[00:08:21.699]If you're not gonna be driving, if you don't own a vehicle,
[00:08:25.486]you're not gonna be purchasing fuel to power that vehicle,
[00:08:29.494]so therefore, you're not exposed to paying that tax.
[00:08:34.219]And it's also proportional to how many miles you drive.
[00:08:38.329]So the more miles you drive, the more fuel you burn,
[00:08:42.067]the more you're paying for the upkeep
[00:08:43.709]and the maintenance of the road system.
[00:08:46.796]But as we start moving down this list,
[00:08:50.227]you see that tie to the system usage weakens,
[00:08:55.518]so much so that you can look at
[00:08:57.720]the general sales tax at the local level,
[00:09:00.175]you're paying that regardless of you using the road itself.
[00:09:05.350]Now, we'll make arguments that it's important because
[00:09:08.617]that sales tax also supports the commercial activity,
[00:09:12.096]so there is a tie to transportation, but again,
[00:09:15.266]it's not as direct as a user fee as the fuel tax itself.
[00:09:19.449]And the least is the real estate tax,
[00:09:22.523]where you think about this,
[00:09:24.489]that's determined not on your usage
[00:09:26.555]but actually on the value of your property.
[00:09:28.962]And it's not even necessarily on the frontage,
[00:09:31.580]the amount of frontage that you have,
[00:09:34.349]the amount of street that you have in front of your house.
[00:09:38.316]I'll get back to this
[00:09:40.612]more from the economic perspective of,
[00:09:43.644]as we break this link between the usage,
[00:09:47.472]so the user fee concept,
[00:09:49.487]to one where you're not tying it to use,
[00:09:54.987]in the economic analysis,
[00:09:57.515]you're more likely to overuse or oversupply a good
[00:10:02.023]when you don't link it to the actual usage.
[00:10:05.492]Okay, so let's take a look at
[00:10:09.291]one illustration of revenue for states,
[00:10:11.531]and this happens to be Iowa, and if you take a look at
[00:10:16.208]how Iowa, state of Iowa,
[00:10:19.136]brings in money to pay for surface transportation.
[00:10:23.750]The work horse is the taxes, the fuel tax.
[00:10:27.909]Here in the state of Iowa, we have no tolls,
[00:10:30.689]so there's no tolls.
[00:10:33.730]We do use general revenue, okay,
[00:10:35.808]so this is a transfer from
[00:10:38.418]the general coffers of the states,
[00:10:41.037]generated through property,
[00:10:43.001]or personal income tax and corporate tax.
[00:10:46.620]There's a little bit of a miscellaneous.
[00:10:50.504]We have no bonds.
[00:10:53.564]Iowa is a state where it's a pay as you go state,
[00:10:56.208]when it comes to surface transportation.
[00:10:58.456]The state will not go into debt
[00:11:00.607]to pay for capital operations or maintenance.
[00:11:04.578]So our state government does not
[00:11:08.058]solicit or borrow money to pay for the roads.
[00:11:13.986]Other states do.
[00:11:17.195]And last one is the federal payments,
[00:11:19.612]so this is the transfer of the federal fuel tax money
[00:11:23.261]into the state.
[00:11:25.596]Okay.
[00:11:29.291]So.
[00:11:33.242]Another question, so I already asked
[00:11:35.788]how much are you paying per gallon?
[00:11:40.488]And this is for a state, and the folks on the video here
[00:11:44.174]are saying, I'm not sure, I like this person here,
[00:11:47.488]'cause he owns the gas station,
[00:11:49.475]and he came in with federal fuel tax of 80 cents.
[00:11:55.923]So how many people, at least here in this room,
[00:11:59.060]and I can't see out on the web here,
[00:12:03.141]but how many people did guess 18.4 cents?
[00:12:07.747]I had 18.
[00:12:08.715]Had 18, okay.
[00:12:11.357]Not very many people know that.
[00:12:13.948]Now, let me ask you this, in a given year,
[00:12:18.708]how much do you think a typical vehicle pays in fuel tax?
[00:12:31.740]All right, so if you write that down,
[00:12:33.144]we'll get to that in a minute, but before that,
[00:12:38.184]let me also point out that the federal fuel tax
[00:12:40.831]has not been raised since 1993.
[00:12:44.333]1992, 1993.
[00:12:46.696]At that time it was set, it raised by five cents,
[00:12:49.947]and it was put at 18.4 cents.
[00:12:53.542]And do you know how they actually got that through Congress?
[00:12:58.231]It was part of a deficit reduction package.
[00:13:02.555]And what Congress did at that point was to say,
[00:13:06.187]okay, not all that five cent increase was going
[00:13:08.790]to the highway trust fund, but part of that
[00:13:11.277]was going to the deficit reduction.
[00:13:14.388]Now, that's a little bit important
[00:13:17.284]in filling in a back story
[00:13:21.093]in a minute or two, so.
[00:13:25.521]Now that you know the fuel tax is at 18.4 cents,
[00:13:29.438]it has not been raised since 1992, 1993.
[00:13:34.819]Would you be in favor of raising the fuel tax?
[00:13:38.679]Just think about this, if this was any other business,
[00:13:41.640]and you have not had an increase in revenue.
[00:13:47.542]Yes, yes.
[00:13:49.337]Okay, so you're jotting down yes.
[00:13:53.085]I'm saying no.
[00:13:54.234]Good, good!
[00:13:55.208]I'm impressed, we have somebody who says no.
[00:13:57.374]Because my next question
[00:14:01.023]would be, well, what if you knew
[00:14:03.948]that you only paid roughly $250 per vehicle,
[00:14:07.796]this is both state and federal tax,
[00:14:09.979]so that's about $25 per month,
[00:14:12.306]would that help change your mind?
[00:14:14.525]No, because I wouldn't trust
[00:14:16.694]how the politicians would spend it.
[00:14:18.534](participants laughing)
[00:14:19.998]All right, so,
[00:14:21.290]I'm not gonna be able to answer that question.
[00:14:23.544]But just think about this.
[00:14:25.144]The $25 per month,
[00:14:27.498]I like saying this to large groups of people,
[00:14:31.097]and how much do you pay for cable?
[00:14:35.597]All right?
[00:14:36.430]30.
[00:14:37.295]Okay, so you know, putting it in context,
[00:14:40.326]you know, $25 per month, yes.
[00:14:43.127]We don't like paying taxes, but if that's a budget breaker.
[00:14:48.399]Okay, so for everybody who's still saying no, what if?
[00:14:53.317]Well, I say,
[00:14:55.512]what if by law,
[00:14:57.946]the money could only be spent on surface transportation?
[00:15:01.778]Congress can't mess with it, and it can't,
[00:15:04.489]would you change your mind?
[00:15:06.214]If there were limits
[00:15:08.441]on how much I could fritter away on transit
[00:15:11.586]and buying planes, yes.
[00:15:14.476]All right.
[00:15:16.496]So we're getting closer.
[00:15:21.272]Well, what if some of that money could spent on transit?
[00:15:25.077]What I'm leading up to here is,
[00:15:27.449]part of our work that we've been doing
[00:15:29.268]for the last decade or more,
[00:15:31.259]was posing these types of questions to the general public
[00:15:34.486]to see what is the level of understanding
[00:15:37.697]about funding and financing the road system?
[00:15:41.222]So, we asked those series of questions
[00:15:43.943]and here's our recent set of results.
[00:15:47.453]So we have about 1700 people who responded
[00:15:50.026]to a random telephone survey.
[00:15:53.011]And we have just right out, saying,
[00:15:55.822]would you be in favor of increasing the fuel tax?
[00:15:59.861]29% are in favor, 60% no.
[00:16:04.950]Your company.
[00:16:06.625]Well, what if you condition that on
[00:16:09.256]if you knew you only paid that $25 per month, and we vary
[00:16:12.711]how we state this so we're not biasing our respondents,
[00:16:16.824]so of the 60 who said no, we get a move,
[00:16:20.116]15% are now in favor of it, so you're up to 38%.
[00:16:25.570]And then condition that again based on,
[00:16:27.908]well if you knew that by law,
[00:16:30.525]the money could not be spent on anything
[00:16:32.236]other than surface transportation,
[00:16:34.108]we see that we spike it up and we're close to 50%.
[00:16:37.915]Now here's this question about,
[00:16:40.482]well, what if there was a law that
[00:16:42.437]didn't allow this to be spent,
[00:16:44.985]most people don't actually know that law exists,
[00:16:48.058]the federal Highway Trust Fund, the money that,
[00:16:52.020]the fund that collects, for the most part, the fuel tax
[00:16:57.062]can only be spent on surface transportation.
[00:17:00.756]Yes, well, what if it goes
[00:17:02.900]to transit and beautification projects,
[00:17:07.491]but not the majority of it?
[00:17:10.311]Most states also have
[00:17:13.122]the state fuel tax protected by law,
[00:17:15.954]that it can only be spent on surface transportation.
[00:17:19.711]So it is tying the use,
[00:17:22.134]where the money is being collected
[00:17:24.325]to where it's being spent.
[00:17:28.035]And then, here's the kicker, they finally pushed it over
[00:17:31.721]the 50% mark, and that is,
[00:17:34.245]well, what if we could spend it on transit?
[00:17:37.090]Then we did get that little bit of a bump,
[00:17:38.936]we got a 2% increase, and it gets above 50%.
[00:17:42.912]And this has been pretty steady, for the last six years,
[00:17:46.859]series of responses.
[00:17:49.253]As people get more and more information, they become
[00:17:52.088]more and more favorable for increasing the fuel tax.
[00:17:56.150]Okay, so.
[00:17:58.885]I don't have the slides up here,
[00:18:00.321]but I wanted to talk you through why
[00:18:03.342]relying on the fuel tax really is not
[00:18:05.957]the best bet to take,
[00:18:09.802]and that is, what we've seen is a changing
[00:18:14.495]economic environment when it comes to fuel taxes.
[00:18:18.510]Now, I'll take you from 1950s
[00:18:21.363]to the mid-2000s.
[00:18:23.747]Here in the United States,
[00:18:25.641]we were growing VMT, VMT was increasing
[00:18:29.221]by an average, about 3% per year.
[00:18:33.378]So if you think about how the fuel tax itself
[00:18:36.466]is pretty static, we were still increasing
[00:18:39.109]the amount of revenue that was coming into
[00:18:41.433]paying for the roads, or surface transportation,
[00:18:44.254]because we were driving more and more each year.
[00:18:48.906]Well, there was something that kind of happened in 2004,
[00:18:51.971]and what we start seeing was
[00:18:53.250]a decrease in the increase of VMT.
[00:18:58.000]Something like in from Washington would be, so that's a cut.
[00:19:01.689](participants laughing)
[00:19:05.682]So what we start seeing was this,
[00:19:07.648]there was a slow down in VMT.
[00:19:09.611]And that actually happens to correspond
[00:19:11.514]with some of the things that we been finding as,
[00:19:15.221]and 2004 happens to be the first year
[00:19:17.721]where the net disposable
[00:19:20.810]or discretionary income, hit zero
[00:19:22.763]for households in the United States.
[00:19:24.853]We were borrowing a lot of money, personal money,
[00:19:27.793]to keep our household budgets in balance.
[00:19:30.751]So we started, at that point,
[00:19:33.060]having to make serious decisions and tradeoffs,
[00:19:35.449]and one of those happened to be traveling less.
[00:19:39.669]Then what we see in 2007 was the economic recession
[00:19:43.844]as we started losing the commercial traffic
[00:19:47.715]and VMT for the first time in US history
[00:19:51.057]actually in 2007 was less than what we drove in 2006.
[00:19:56.189]And that continued through 2009.
[00:19:58.783]So think about this, our fuel tax hasn't increased,
[00:20:02.940]our VMT has decreased, and now it's beginning
[00:20:06.006]to pick up a little, but it's fairly leveling off.
[00:20:08.841]So revenue is not keeping pace with costs.
[00:20:12.290]Here's the other part of the equation.
[00:20:17.010]Since the 1970s,
[00:20:18.315]we've doubled fuel efficiencies of vehicles.
[00:20:22.000]In 1976, I would really proud to say,
[00:20:25.662]my car is getting eight miles per gallon.
[00:20:28.228]And that was high efficiency.
[00:20:30.495]All right, now the fleet is at 24 miles per gallon.
[00:20:34.045]And with the new CAFE standards,
[00:20:36.702]the rules that have been put in place,
[00:20:39.522]it's gonna double by 2025
[00:20:42.581]to 56 miles per gallon.
[00:20:46.046]So again, if you think about relying on the fuel tax,
[00:20:48.932]that's not gonna be the work horse
[00:20:51.516]that it has been in the past.
[00:20:52.890]So the governments are looking at alternatives.
[00:20:55.633]So if you look at, back to the slide,
[00:20:58.664]it's not that the fuel tax and the excise tax
[00:21:01.387]is not gonna be important, it still is.
[00:21:03.526]But we're gonna start relying
[00:21:05.031]on these other types of revenue more and more.
[00:21:09.548]And how we do that, well, let's take a look at the states.
[00:21:14.664]Here's an illustration of every state that allows
[00:21:17.223]a local sales options tax to be put in place
[00:21:20.867]and dedicated to infrastructure,
[00:21:23.238]in this case, for surface transportation.
[00:21:25.960]That's not how the United States used to look.
[00:21:32.200]So, right now,
[00:21:35.768]most of these local sales taxes,
[00:21:38.086]they're sold as paying taxes,
[00:21:40.434]so, we'll increase your sales tax by a penny.
[00:21:44.393]All right, in which, they're referring to it
[00:21:46.083]as a one percent increase.
[00:21:50.908]So let me ask you this,
[00:21:52.501]if we were to rely more on sales tax,
[00:21:54.630]you as a consumer, you as a driver,
[00:21:56.810]would you be interested in increasing sales tax
[00:21:59.771]to support road infrastructure or surface transportation?
[00:22:06.511]So if you could track you responses to see
[00:22:09.329]if you fit with the national perspective or not.
[00:22:12.922]Well, let me spend a little bit of a time
[00:22:14.904]and talk about the California experience.
[00:22:17.703]So in this case, California has really relied on
[00:22:21.465]the local sales tax to support road infrastructure.
[00:22:26.994]They have a 25 history, 25-year history of doing this,
[00:22:31.117]20 counties have approved local sales option taxes,
[00:22:35.690]they generate about 2.5 billion dollars per year
[00:22:38.714]in the state of California, and the research
[00:22:41.337]that has come out of California Berkeley and UCLA,
[00:22:45.010]Marty Wachs and Brian Taylor, they've looked at why
[00:22:48.823]has it been so successful in California,
[00:22:51.332]and we find, here are the four points, one,
[00:22:56.110]each of those
[00:22:58.764]proposals have to specifically identify
[00:23:02.610]what is gonna be built or improved.
[00:23:05.485]So it's the detailed listing of what
[00:23:08.444]I'm gonna be putting the sales tax towards.
[00:23:11.991]It requires voter approval,
[00:23:14.190]so it comes up for a direct vote, so it goes back to
[00:23:18.351]Wilson's concern about well, maybe the politicians
[00:23:20.906]aren't applying the money the way you might want it.
[00:23:25.401]So it's a direct user's vote.
[00:23:28.893]The money can only be spent in the county in which
[00:23:31.689]it enacted that sales tax.
[00:23:34.634]All right, so it's kept local.
[00:23:37.138]And it actually has an expiration date.
[00:23:39.343]It doesn't automatically get reinstated.
[00:23:42.958]If they wanna continue it, it needs to go back to a vote.
[00:23:48.526]I got myself in a bit of trouble
[00:23:50.580]when I was presenting this to the League of Cities,
[00:23:53.462]and we just recently experienced locally
[00:23:56.729]one of our jurisdictions failed
[00:24:00.437]twice in a row now
[00:24:01.918]on doing a local sales tax for infrastructure
[00:24:04.337]and they violated most all these points
[00:24:06.869]in having a wide open selection,
[00:24:09.513]they wanted to please everybody,
[00:24:11.334]so they put money all over the place,
[00:24:14.119]and the voters continually reject it.
[00:24:16.961]Okay, so let's go back to the national look.
[00:24:20.202]So, right off the bat,
[00:24:22.527]only 18% of people polled would say yes,
[00:24:25.872]we're in favor of increasing the sales tax.
[00:24:29.484]Well, all right, if we wanted it so it could only be spent
[00:24:33.358]on roads, or in this case, surface transportation,
[00:24:37.075]well, we get a big bump, you get up to 34%.
[00:24:41.570]But that's it, we don't get it any higher than that
[00:24:46.608]in the general poll.
[00:24:50.163]So let's move to the other option, the other alternative
[00:24:53.615]that is being explored, and that is tolls.
[00:24:57.077]How many people have driven recently on a toll road?
[00:25:03.578]Now think about that funding mechanism.
[00:25:07.840]You drove on that road, you paid for driving on that road,
[00:25:11.882]and that money comes back, for the most part,
[00:25:13.927]to supporting that road.,
[00:25:17.750]So again, it ties this
[00:25:19.574]a little bit more to an equity issue of
[00:25:22.476]only those who are using the roads are paying for the roads.
[00:25:25.726]It's not coming out of the general funds.
[00:25:29.905]The other question that we asked was,
[00:25:31.690]well, if you had an existing toll in your area,
[00:25:34.221]would you be willing to increase it?
[00:25:37.945]And,
[00:25:40.309]I'll get to the answers.
[00:25:41.597]But here's the layout of what states allow tolling.
[00:25:46.918]Now, the interstate system.
[00:25:49.078]Interstate system, I'll get to in a minute.
[00:25:52.414]Up until June,
[00:25:56.087]had a longstanding prohibition from tolling new,
[00:26:02.198]any of the interstates
[00:26:03.639]that weren't already tolled before 1956.
[00:26:07.429]But we are allowed to toll bridges and tunnels.
[00:26:10.876]So here are the states that have interstates
[00:26:12.570]with interstate toll and tunnel tolls.
[00:26:17.694]And, non-interstate bridge and tunnel tolls.
[00:26:20.641]So you see that this is somewhat of a popular method
[00:26:25.009]of raising revenue, again.
[00:26:29.788]Interstate toll roads.
[00:26:31.579]Again, these were the tolls that were already in place
[00:26:34.003]before the interstate system was designated,
[00:26:36.985]so they were allowed to continue the tolling.
[00:26:40.897]Non-interstate tolls.
[00:26:43.657]So you also could see this is fairly regional.
[00:26:47.122]The east coast from Maine down to Florida,
[00:26:50.504]both interstate and non,
[00:26:52.962]many of the states opt for tolling.
[00:26:57.741]And, this is the proposed, financing,
[00:27:01.046]and construction tolls where
[00:27:03.827]now using toll revenues, you can actually plan
[00:27:07.506]and build the roads themselves.
[00:27:09.792]Okay, so that was the picture before June of this year,
[00:27:13.517]before MAP-21 became law, so that was yesterday,
[00:27:16.701]yesterday was longstanding prohibition
[00:27:19.021]on new tolls for existing interstate highways.
[00:27:21.907]Today, MAP-21 just opened up the door
[00:27:24.753]for both tolling interstate and non-interstate highways
[00:27:28.072]on a national system.
[00:27:31.059]There's two sections within the law,
[00:27:33.952]Sections 129, which is the general tolling program,
[00:27:37.684]and Section 166, which is
[00:27:39.437]the high-occupancy tolling program.
[00:27:41.907]I'll detail what these two mean
[00:27:44.147]and perhaps the implications on,
[00:27:46.700]is this a viable competitor for the fuel tax itself?
[00:27:52.578]Okay, so looking at the general tolling program,
[00:27:54.992]Section 129, we are now allowed
[00:27:57.816]to toll all of new capacity,
[00:28:01.894]so all new capacity.
[00:28:05.158]Can't touch any of the existing lanes,
[00:28:08.188]if they're in place, you can't place a toll on them.
[00:28:10.861]But anything new that you build, you can.
[00:28:13.860]And that revenue itself has to be used for only these items.
[00:28:17.978]One, debt service.
[00:28:21.267]Also allows for an adequate return to private investment.
[00:28:27.457]You can use it for operations and maintenance of the roads.
[00:28:30.716]You can use it for a P3,
[00:28:32.595]the public-private partnership payments.
[00:28:35.464]And after you've accomplished all those,
[00:28:38.052]if you have excess, then you could spend it on
[00:28:41.134]any of the other programs within the transportation bill.
[00:28:47.999]Now, with that comes a yearly audit.
[00:28:51.027]So the new tolling systems have to have a yearly audit.
[00:28:54.930]And, they no longer need permission,
[00:28:58.239]so a state and a local government no longer needs
[00:29:00.784]to go into a tolling agreement with the USDOT.
[00:29:04.448]So there's not a federal oversight of approval.
[00:29:10.133]Section 166, which is the high-occupancy tolling.
[00:29:14.688]Again, now that opens up that any of the existing,
[00:29:18.425]or excuse me, any new lanes that are added
[00:29:21.055]to the existing system can be tolled
[00:29:24.366]as a high-occupancy lane.
[00:29:28.501]Revenues again can be used for the same goals as
[00:29:33.681]Section 129.
[00:29:36.201]And now they've added some more requirements
[00:29:38.761]that if you do this,
[00:29:40.377]now you must have an enforcement program.
[00:29:44.633]So you have to catch the people
[00:29:45.970]who are trying to beat your toll.
[00:29:48.104]There has to be an automatic tolling.
[00:29:50.061]So there's no toll booth.
[00:29:51.507]And you think about this, you know,
[00:29:54.155]if I had more time, I would talk about
[00:29:57.804]our focus groups up in the Chicago area,
[00:30:01.149]that before tolls went in,
[00:30:03.299]they said, they were the worst things,
[00:30:04.957]afterwards, they said it was the best thing
[00:30:07.190]'cause it reduces the congestion.
[00:30:08.887]Don't have to go through the toll booth.
[00:30:12.912]You can bet that they have to vary the toll
[00:30:15.148]based on the congestion, so it changes based on
[00:30:18.218]how many other people are using the road.
[00:30:20.819]And, that all the systems have to be interoperable.
[00:30:26.466]So if you are using, for example, I'll just pick
[00:30:29.861]two that come to mind, if you're using the I-PASS system
[00:30:32.305]in Illinois, that's easily used on the EZ-Pass system
[00:30:37.028]on the East Coast, but they have to be interoperable.
[00:30:40.773]They also need an annual audit.
[00:30:44.260]And once again, they don't have to have a tolling agreement
[00:30:48.338]between the jurisdictions as they had in the past.
[00:30:52.472]So think about this, this is now kind of really
[00:30:55.250]opening up a new future of,
[00:30:57.490]could we start looking at a stable source of revenue
[00:31:01.988]coming in for surface transportation.
[00:31:05.937]Now I just put this up as an illustration.
[00:31:07.753]Up in Minneapolis,
[00:31:09.803]we do have two variable tolling facilities,
[00:31:12.812]the 395 corridor,
[00:31:15.298]that's going east and west into Minneapolis,
[00:31:18.188]has a variable toll lane, so there's five places
[00:31:21.319]that you can enter and exit the toll
[00:31:24.259]and that changes from zero
[00:31:27.046]up to a maximum of eight dollars
[00:31:29.588]for the use of that toll lane
[00:31:30.964]and that varies based on the congestion.
[00:31:33.739]The operating target is that the vehicles have to,
[00:31:37.668]the minimum speed will be 45 miles per hour,
[00:31:40.249]the target is 55 miles per hour, the speed limit.
[00:31:43.662]So that's how they varied the toll
[00:31:46.461]to keep that in check.
[00:31:48.532]And the other toll facility is the 35 West corridor,
[00:31:52.591]again, coming into Minneapolis.
[00:31:56.919]Okay, so back to our national poll.
[00:32:00.274]Would you be in favor of increasing an existing toll?
[00:32:03.849]Right off the bat, 31% said yes.
[00:32:07.998]Well, if it can only be used for that road,
[00:32:11.604]we're up to 50%.
[00:32:14.110]Well, take this, compare it to,
[00:32:17.454]if you're gonna create a new toll.
[00:32:20.178]And if you're creating a new toll,
[00:32:22.254]only 32% of the population is in favor of that.
[00:32:26.352]So this gets back to what I was saying is the experience,
[00:32:29.825]when people have actually experienced the tolling,
[00:32:32.786]the reduction in congestion,
[00:32:35.529]they're more likely to be in favor of the toll itself
[00:32:38.569]than somebody who has yet to experience the tolling.
[00:32:43.484]Okay, so let's take a look at property taxes.
[00:32:49.952]Would you be interested in increasing registration fees?
[00:32:52.944]Again, you know, we're in a hard situation.
[00:32:56.005]We don't have a lot of money to pay our bills.
[00:32:59.040]Would you be interested in helping us out by
[00:33:01.229]paying more in registration fees?
[00:33:04.019]I know, Will.
[00:33:05.518](participants chuckling)
[00:33:06.633]All right, so here we go again.
[00:33:08.781]National polls again.
[00:33:12.502]Right off the bat,
[00:33:13.562]about a third of the population would say yes,
[00:33:15.821]and then it jumps up once you say, once again,
[00:33:18.889]that this money can only be spent on the roads itself.
[00:33:23.899]Well, let's take a look at some
[00:33:27.809]new taxes that are being proposed.
[00:33:31.306]Whether they make it past the draft board, who knows?
[00:33:35.465]But what we're looking at is energy tax.
[00:33:39.401]So how about if we just kind of, you know,
[00:33:41.269]think about scrapping charging for gasoline
[00:33:44.672]or taxing gasoline and diesel, but actually look at this
[00:33:48.324]by gallon, by taxes based on the BTU.
[00:33:51.425]And then if we do that, we can capture all the energy
[00:33:54.822]that can be used to propel the vehicles themselves.
[00:34:00.690]Okay, or a carbon tax.
[00:34:05.111]By the way, those two don't really make it very far
[00:34:07.516]in most legislatures.
[00:34:09.705]And then the third one is a vehicle miles traveled tax,
[00:34:12.408]or a VMT tax, I like to say user fee.
[00:34:16.343]Because it is towards the top of the tie.
[00:34:19.778]So in this case what we'd be doing
[00:34:21.459]is charging pennies per mile,
[00:34:23.762]and that can be broken down either a flat rate,
[00:34:26.234]so everybody pays the same rate.
[00:34:29.224]So here's another question,
[00:34:30.458]but I don't have an actual poll on this,
[00:34:32.476]how much on the average in the United States
[00:34:36.798]do we pay per mile in taxes?
[00:34:43.708]For every mile that you drive, on average,
[00:34:45.928]how much are you paying in fuel taxes?
[00:34:48.625]Just?
[00:34:49.458]Just federal, or?
[00:34:50.920]Federal and state, the average federal rate.
[00:34:53.617]Three cents.
[00:34:56.020]Divide that by two, it's 1.6 cents per mile.
[00:35:01.398]Or, you could think about charging that as a variable rate
[00:35:04.499]and varying it based on the fuel type,
[00:35:07.285]maybe the fuel efficiency,
[00:35:09.035]so you might wanna reward somebody
[00:35:10.260]who's in more of a green vehicle than a fuel hog.
[00:35:15.255]And you could vary it based on location, for example.
[00:35:19.726]So.
[00:35:21.779]We did ask this, again, in the national polls.
[00:35:25.205]What about adopting a mileage charge?
[00:35:28.909]And where did it go, right off, I must've missed it.
[00:35:33.067]All right, so I'll tell you what the national poll says.
[00:35:35.712]Right off the bat, you get only about
[00:35:39.601]15% of the people saying yes, this is a good idea.
[00:35:42.993]After you caveat it, and you explain
[00:35:45.034]what a mileage charge is, you might get it up to
[00:35:48.505]20, 25% of the individuals.
[00:35:52.776]And I wanna do that, just mention that because
[00:35:58.248]for the last six years, what we've been doing
[00:36:00.388]here at the University of Iowa is,
[00:36:02.316]doing a national evaluation of the mileage charge,
[00:36:05.179]you know, fully electronic system that
[00:36:08.720]would be based off of
[00:36:11.815]knowing where the vehicle is,
[00:36:13.177]how many miles has been traveled,
[00:36:14.894]now let me also say, in this case,
[00:36:17.073]all's we needed to know was
[00:36:18.510]if the vehicle is traveling in what state,
[00:36:20.768]or what taxing jurisdiction, so that we could apply
[00:36:23.766]the appropriate state rate at that moment.
[00:36:26.981]It didn't look at what routes
[00:36:28.979]or specifically where the vehicle was, it's just saying
[00:36:31.274]are you in the state of Nebraska or aren't you?
[00:36:34.302]And that information was
[00:36:37.479]transmitted over the cellular data network
[00:36:41.697]to the University of Iowa.
[00:36:43.368]I know our building's not that tall.
[00:36:46.816]But at that point, we would collect
[00:36:50.374]the total miles traveled, we applied the billing amounts,
[00:36:54.318]and then we would invoice our participants
[00:36:57.534]for how many miles they traveled
[00:36:59.798]based on the equivalent fuel.
[00:37:03.204]And here's our study sites, we had 12 study sites
[00:37:05.497]and they were spread across the United States.
[00:37:07.859]We varied 'em based on large metropolitan areas,
[00:37:10.854]intermediate metropolitan areas, and rural regions.
[00:37:15.417]So we had a great demographic cut of the population.
[00:37:19.528]We had over 81,000 eligible candidates
[00:37:22.474]who wanted to be in the study.
[00:37:24.257]We ended up enrolling and completing 2,511,
[00:37:29.005]with only a 5% drop out.
[00:37:31.371]And our participants matched the national demographics
[00:37:34.033]on age, gender, education, income,
[00:37:36.744]commute time, and self-identified political affiliation.
[00:37:40.034]So we had good pool of individuals.
[00:37:43.536]So after the two years, each,
[00:37:46.510]back up for a second, each participant
[00:37:48.824]was in the study for a 10-month period.
[00:37:51.216]We collected their driving data
[00:37:52.797]for eight of those 10 months.
[00:37:55.213]So those 2,500 participants total,
[00:37:59.159]they drove 22 million miles.
[00:38:02.749]And that's quite a bit, so that averages out
[00:38:06.267]to about 1200 miles per vehicle per year.
[00:38:13.256]So with the 22 million miles
[00:38:15.574]we were able to actually track.
[00:38:17.708]Nope, shouldn't use that word.
[00:38:19.660]We were actually able to locate that vehicle
[00:38:22.096]precisely with the GPS
[00:38:25.188]for 92.5% of the time.
[00:38:30.576]The other percent of the times,
[00:38:32.212]the GPS unit itself was not working,
[00:38:34.779]but we were able to identify based on their last position,
[00:38:38.913]which jurisdiction they would have been in.
[00:38:41.124]So we actually had quite a good accountability.
[00:38:46.884]We were able to account for the miles by location
[00:38:50.540]more than 99% accurate.
[00:38:54.199]We didn't detect any urban or natural canyon effects
[00:38:57.513]in disruptions of the cellular network or the GPS.
[00:39:02.425]There was no significant data loss
[00:39:04.021]using the cellular network.
[00:39:05.711]What I'm building up here is,
[00:39:07.438]the technology currently exists
[00:39:10.021]and it's throughout the United States,
[00:39:12.720]that a system like that is possible.
[00:39:15.467]I'd also point out that our study began in 2005.
[00:39:18.523]So now we look back at the technology
[00:39:20.879]and it's almost like carving in clay tablets.
[00:39:24.009]Technology has moved beyond what we've tested.
[00:39:29.275]The Minnesota DOT has a terrific
[00:39:31.529]demonstration project going on now
[00:39:34.052]where they've actually moved everything into smartphones.
[00:39:37.933]So you just take the smartphone into your car
[00:39:41.130]rather than having anything
[00:39:43.348]physically connected to the vehicle itself.
[00:39:47.410]All right, so the downside of this, though, and again,
[00:39:50.250]what Minnesota's doing is getting around all this,
[00:39:53.195]it was a complex process of installing the equipment.
[00:39:57.695]And the biggest problems that we found,
[00:39:59.700]it was the follow-up visits.
[00:40:01.452]25% of our participants had to come back
[00:40:04.230]after the equipment was installed for various reasons.
[00:40:07.674]8% was directly related to an installation problem.
[00:40:12.724]So if you think about this as retro-fitting all vehicles
[00:40:15.768]in the United States, this is not a starter, this is no-go.
[00:40:20.711]And again, I'll point out that in this system
[00:40:23.306]that we were evaluating, we physically had it connected
[00:40:26.530]to the OBD port as well as connecting
[00:40:29.662]to the electrical bus,
[00:40:31.771]and many of the modern cars are designed
[00:40:34.670]on the leading edge of the electric system
[00:40:37.951]so if you add a third party device,
[00:40:40.802]very easy to short things out.
[00:40:44.062]And we annoyed a couple of our Prius owners
[00:40:46.788]by shorting out their entire system.
[00:40:49.317](participant chuckling)
[00:40:50.637]Very expensive.
[00:40:52.543]Okay, so but from the participants' perspective,
[00:40:57.356]for participants coming into the system,
[00:40:59.695]42% were favorable, so that's with a higher percentage
[00:41:03.038]than when we stop people on the street.
[00:41:05.407]We can tie this back to, we actually did a lot
[00:41:09.111]of training of our participants beforehand
[00:41:11.241]so they knew what a mileage charge system was.
[00:41:16.126]After their 10 months' exposure,
[00:41:18.275]70% of the people left the study who liked this.
[00:41:20.972]And what I'm not showing here is,
[00:41:22.823]there was a lot of movement,
[00:41:24.089]people who came in who were really favorable,
[00:41:25.947]left very negative.
[00:41:28.565]As well as the other way around.
[00:41:30.375]So there was movement, people just didn't come in
[00:41:32.414]with a fixed opinion and leave with a fixed opinion.
[00:41:38.002]All right, so privacy.
[00:41:39.663]Privacy is an issue on mileage charging.
[00:41:43.460]And our participants said, yes,
[00:41:45.001]60% believe that no matter what government said,
[00:41:47.608]they're still gonna be using this to track their vehicles,
[00:41:51.077]and part of that was, well, then,
[00:41:54.471]they'll only collect a minimum amount of data that's needed.
[00:41:58.036]Don't collect anything other than, let's say,
[00:42:00.124]how much I owe and to who I owe it to.
[00:42:03.498]But even with those privacy concerns,
[00:42:06.505]70% of the people left the study favorable.
[00:42:09.940]And they tie that back to them telling us,
[00:42:12.994]well, we're favorable because you showed us
[00:42:15.178]that the system was reliable,
[00:42:17.555]it was accurate, and it was fair.
[00:42:20.292]So they view this as a viable replacement of the fuel tax.
[00:42:24.429]In concept.
[00:42:27.916]And again, part of that was,
[00:42:30.249]they're able to audit the bills
[00:42:32.729]so they knew how much they were gonna be spending,
[00:42:36.075]and they knew where it was going.
[00:42:38.406]What they didn't know was, how would it be spent.
[00:42:40.783]But again.
[00:42:44.523]Oh, so I guess I did bump this over.
[00:42:47.516]All right, so what we're looking at is,
[00:42:52.038]after we, oh, let me back up.
[00:42:54.717]After we conditioned the national poll,
[00:42:57.126]we could get people up to about 45%
[00:42:59.438]with enough information explaining what a VMT system is,
[00:43:03.519]and as well as it being cost-neutral to
[00:43:06.511]the fuel tax that you're paying now.
[00:43:10.291]So once that is conditioned, we could get about 45%
[00:43:14.047]of the general public saying, yes.
[00:43:16.286]Except, if you mention the word GPS,
[00:43:20.886]that 45% then drops back down to 26%.
[00:43:26.499]All right, so.
[00:43:29.971]I know we started late,
[00:43:31.552]and we have about five minutes left for questions.
[00:43:34.641]So with that, I bet I have a bunch of opinions
[00:43:38.490]and view comments, so please, let me hear 'em.
[00:43:48.035]Anybody?
[00:43:57.624]So, Paul, what percentage
[00:43:59.684]of the road use tax is spent now on transit?
[00:44:04.024]15%.
[00:44:05.880]15.
[00:44:07.446]Yes.
[00:44:08.823]Now, one of the
[00:44:13.066]changes with MAP-21 has been
[00:44:15.274]to try to bring more efficiencies and flexibility
[00:44:18.737]on how other money is being spent.
[00:44:21.505]So some of the enhancement programs are now
[00:44:24.369]not mandatory but are discussionary at the state level.
[00:44:28.514]So that may address some of the concerns
[00:44:30.436]about money that's being collected for the roads
[00:44:33.507]are not going necessarily to the roads.
[00:44:42.110]All right, well, maybe I could put Beth on the spot,
[00:44:44.208]because she was one of our graduate research assistants
[00:44:46.908]on the mileage charge
[00:44:48.523]and she was part of the training situation.
[00:44:51.577]Any insights on
[00:44:55.147]any of our participants, what they said?
[00:44:57.078]She was also, took a lot of telephone calls.
[00:45:03.491]It seemed interest, mostly people who were
[00:45:06.177]already familiar with a tracking system similar to
[00:45:09.841]the Florida SunPass or the Illinois I-PASS,
[00:45:13.017]if they were already familiar with having that kind
[00:45:14.562]of technology in their cars, they were much more apt
[00:45:17.227]to be comfortable with this system in their cars.
[00:45:20.167]So that seemed to be happening faster,
[00:45:22.490]and more acceptance of that.
[00:45:26.444]Have a question online.
[00:45:33.636]Valerie has a question.
[00:45:35.613]What do you personally think
[00:45:36.880]is the future of surface transportation finance?
[00:45:40.066]If it is VMT, how many years do you envision
[00:45:42.859]it will take to implement and become public?
[00:45:48.695]Good question.
[00:45:50.440]The future of our surface transportation revenue
[00:45:53.454]is gonna be that mixed bag of revenue sources
[00:45:56.991]that I've been showing.
[00:45:58.766]There's gonna be more reliance on tolling.
[00:46:01.556]It's more acceptable from the public
[00:46:03.800]as well as political world.
[00:46:07.340]As much as we are interested in increasing taxes.
[00:46:11.389]The VMT, well,
[00:46:14.879]what's the future?
[00:46:16.056]At the federal level, maybe we could look at
[00:46:18.121]some insight at the,
[00:46:22.213]the Appropriations committee.
[00:46:24.539]That tonight, they were debating about
[00:46:27.444]the appropriations for MAP-21.
[00:46:30.281]610 million dollars was to be appropriated for the study
[00:46:34.729]of the implementation of VMT at the federal level.
[00:46:38.113]So that might give you a hint
[00:46:40.216]about the federal involvement.
[00:46:42.102]Now with that, is it dead?
[00:46:43.445]Absolutely not, this is a state issue.
[00:46:46.201]The state of Oregon is actively pursuing a mileage charge.
[00:46:50.005]Jim Whitty from the Oregon DOT
[00:46:53.820]is leading the charge.
[00:46:55.997]They have already put in place the system,
[00:46:59.494]the backbone of implementing any VMT charge.
[00:47:03.956]Now, it's not the full electronic system.
[00:47:06.906]What we tested was,
[00:47:09.120]you know, the cutting edge technology,
[00:47:11.830]but they're looking at, well,
[00:47:13.267]how about if we look at different ways
[00:47:15.224]of opting into a VMT and paying a fee
[00:47:18.799]versus having the electronic equipment,
[00:47:22.343]giving the driver that choice between systems.
[00:47:25.734]So Oregon is very active,
[00:47:27.469]as well as the state of Washington.
[00:47:29.998]Colorado, Nevada, and Oregon.
[00:47:32.341]As well as Texas is still kicking around
[00:47:35.593]the idea of exploring VMT.
[00:47:38.593]How long will it take?
[00:47:39.975]Looking at the VMT system in Oregon,
[00:47:42.998]as long as they get the enabling legislation,
[00:47:46.105]which may be next year,
[00:47:47.726]they'll have a system in place probably within a year or so.
[00:47:50.684]Two years, you'll see this at the state level.
[00:48:00.836]Very good presentation, Paul.
[00:48:02.446]I have a question related to the privacy issue.
[00:48:06.973]I know a number of jurisdictions allow you to just
[00:48:09.193]buy a pass, right, pay cash for it,
[00:48:12.067]and it just takes it down, so you really don't have
[00:48:14.525]this issue of, if you're worried about it,
[00:48:17.741]if the car says you're here, you're here,
[00:48:19.742]and it goes down, then you can throw it away.
[00:48:21.845]Is anyone looking at that as part of this discussion?
[00:48:26.849]I should say in the US.
[00:48:28.690]Yeah, within the US.
[00:48:31.639]Yes, and one of the very interesting things
[00:48:35.141]on the tolling industry, what they've always had
[00:48:37.708]was this anonymous accounts that you can apply.
[00:48:42.493]Hardly anybody actually implements it, or uses it.
[00:48:46.814]It's required to get it through legislation,
[00:48:49.828]and the acceptance, but people don't use it.
[00:48:54.157]So, it is being talked about
[00:48:57.049]and built into the VMT systems itself.
[00:48:59.917]The expectation would be,
[00:49:01.008]it would be very similar to tolling.
[00:49:05.395]And just to follow-up, more of an observation,
[00:49:08.488]I always enjoy when people talk about the privacy issue,
[00:49:11.235]and they say, I'm worried about people tracking me.
[00:49:13.893]And they have a smartphone in their hand,
[00:49:15.835]which basically allows
[00:49:18.029]a company to track you from one place to the other
[00:49:20.779]at any time, and we've seen that many times.
[00:49:23.899]So it goes back, I think, to your comment
[00:49:26.741]that it's what you get used to.
[00:49:29.247]Right, we're very happy to be tracked with the cell phone,
[00:49:31.778]but the idea of someone tracking our car using a cell phone,
[00:49:34.837]kind of makes us upset, when they're in fact the same thing.
[00:49:41.602]There's work actually done on,
[00:49:43.865]out of a consumer science focus.
[00:49:47.773]The smartphone is a consumer choice, you chose to do that.
[00:49:51.965]The perception of putting something like that
[00:49:54.341]in your vehicle, government's telling you to do it,
[00:49:56.991]Big Brother.
[00:49:58.296]So it's trying to give the consumer, in this case,
[00:50:02.414]the driver, that option to choose
[00:50:04.175]so that they're willing to opt in.
[00:50:06.682]But you're right, we give away a lot of our location data
[00:50:10.034]without necessarily knowing that.
[00:50:15.321]You got one?
[00:50:19.036]Okay, Valerie has another question.
[00:50:21.411]Has any research been done directly asking
[00:50:23.502]about variable VMT for freight-type organizations,
[00:50:27.242]such as trucking companies or a large trucking firm?
[00:50:33.005]ATA staff says no mileage charging.
[00:50:37.671]Yes, people have looked at mileage charging.
[00:50:40.747]There's a study that (coughing)
[00:50:43.142]was run in New York, New York state,
[00:50:46.938]and that looked at VMT fees for trucking.
[00:50:51.154]You know, just word of mouth that I've heard on the streets
[00:50:55.110]is some of the very large logistic firms,
[00:50:59.626]trucking firms, UPS, Fedex,
[00:51:04.433]are not in favor of it, but if it happens,
[00:51:07.150]they would say, as long as they are in control
[00:51:12.732]of being able to protect their data,
[00:51:15.719]so their competitors won't know their routing,
[00:51:20.916]that would be a requirement.
[00:51:23.446]But yes, back to your direct question,
[00:51:26.935]people have looked at the freight,
[00:51:29.518]the commercial VMT in studies,
[00:51:32.795]and the industry is against it.
[00:51:43.843]Do you wanna speak?
[00:51:45.276]Okay, so I guess that's,
[00:51:47.266]that's all for this week, and again,
[00:51:49.205]thank you for starting out a little late with us.
[00:51:52.294]We had a little bit of a glitch.
[00:51:54.629]So thank you again.
[00:51:56.130](participants applauding)

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2012 MATC Fall Lecture Series: Paul Hanley

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