Here is a link describing the basic motor vehicle tax-by-mile concept.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/20/driving.tax/
It seems to suggest that the federal government has ruled out the idea for the time being, although some states are interested in pursuing it. Apparently Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood floated the idea, which has sparked a bit of controversy over the intrusion into privacy of drivers. The article does mention that congestion pricing is planned for inclusion in the mileage tax system. Congestion pricing is already a part of the High Occupancy Vehicle lanes that are being built on a widespread basis today.
This tax-by-mile system of course is just the basic kernel of the full-blown control overlay system that I believe will eventually come to fruition. As evidence of my prediction of this, the article does mention that countries such as Germany and the Netherlands are exploring the application of emerging technologies that will be able to monitor fuel consumption, the type of vehicle, and level of emissions. It says that these technologies are not quite ripe for U.S. application, but are maturing rapidly.
Meanwhile, the basic technology seems to be developing mainly for commercial vehicle applications in the U.S. for the purpose of fuel consumption management, driver logging, driver performance, etc. Here is a link to that application:
http://www.guardmagic.com/index.html
The second part of the title to this thread "ways to move about the country" is a most telling part. We do not need Balkanization of the US. A very important advantage IMHO is that the US and Canada to the north has been a tightly co-ordinated transportation systems. Be it water, rail, Highway, or air at various times of the 19th - 21st century. We do not need "fifedoms" and "dont come into my back yards" The ability of everyone to communicate through telegraph, then our excellent telephone and internet connections has speeded up everything. I believe it is most important that we increase citizen's mobility and I do not see any other way other than eventually expanding HSR. My only examples are the NEC, California, and Pacific NW corridors and their unemployment along those corridors. I may be wrong but .............?
BucyrusWhen you add this level of sophisticated vehicle management to cars, it will achieve the stated main objectives of HSR better than HSR ever could. So while this new system starts out as a method to get people out of their cars and into HSR, it ends up making HSR obsolete.
I's be now kicking myself---a couple of years ago some folks in the U.K. were suggesting that a way of eliminating passenger rail altogether was this very type of GPS based system. You did say something to the effect awhile back that it would virtually render obsolete any passenger based system although I don't know to what extent that'll happen.
There may be just enough resistance to make it rather difficult to push it across----then again, we do have some who are looking for a political system---
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
Just a couple more thoughts about this future of transportation and my mention of a vehicle external overlay control system with its relationship to HSR.
Through the railfan lens, HSR is like Christmas. It validates everything that train buffs have known all along about the mistake the country made when it dumped passenger trains. But in actuality, the current HSR agenda has nothing to do with the national passenger rail vision that led us into the streamliner era of the 1950s. Instead, the primary stated purpose for HSR today is environmental:
1) To reduce our national dependence on oil.
2) To reduce emissions of CO2.
The current HSR agenda is as much about cars as it is about trains, because the car culture must become less attractive than rail for rail to succeed in its environmental mission. This is the backdrop that opens the door for this new GPS-remote control overlay for motor vehicles. It moves us toward the environmental goals of HSR without taking us out of our cars, giving time for the transition to full HSR.
People like the freedom of driving compared to rail, so the new vehicle controller will take freedom out of driving and replace it with control, thus making rail more attractive. It will level the playing field between highway and rail. Therefore, in pursuit of the goal of getting people out of cars and onto rail, the new vehicle controller system will inevitably include the objective of energy efficiency.
Eco Driving is the name of a new energy conservation discipline that is bound to be imposed on all of us with the authority of this new automatic GPS system. It is really only one step beyond the external speed control concept the I mentioned in a previous post, so it is natural to include it. Just like wind powered electric HSR, Eco Driving is all about reducing our dependency on oil and limiting CO2 emissions.
Right now, Eco Driving is being encouraged as a voluntary personal practice for drivers. However, the point of this fuel conservation practice is not just to save money for drivers. The main point is to serve the greater good of society, and as such, there is every reason to make it compulsory. All that is needed is a method to enforce it. What could be better than simply building it into your car through the automatic GPS external driving overlay system?
Here is a link to fourteen Eco Driving tips where it proclaims its mission of “Turning commuters into lean, green driving machines.” This link opens a podcast on Eco Driving:
http://www.ecodrivingusa.com/#/news-and-events/?type=single&post=219
One of the Eco Driving tips involves your use of air conditioning in your vehicle. The podcast moderator patronizes the listeners with this little poem concerning air conditioning when it is desired in hot weather:
If you’re driving forty or below,
Do we really want the state telling us whether our windows should be open or closed? We could have the decision controlled automatically for us with the new GPS system.
One of the main components of Eco Driving is slow acceleration. Minimizing top speed is another one. Remember when we forced to drive under 55 mph to save fuel? We had to put up new speed limit signs and get used to poking along insufferably on freeways that could accommodate 100 mph. With this new vehicle controller system, a central authority will control our top speed. It could turn the national speed up and down according to the market price of gasoline. So, in times of high gas prices, we might be limited to say 40 mph, just to lower demand and bring the market price down for the greater good.
Another way that this system could produce fuel conservation is by what is known as conservation pricing. In a normal market, when you buy more of something, you get a better price. With conservation pricing, it is just the opposite. It is currently becoming popular with residential water purchase from municipal systems, and will soon be making its way to other utilities such as gas and electricity. Here is an explanation of the concept as applied to water service:
http://www.newwa.org/PDF/BMP%20-%20Conservation%20Pricing%20July%2009.pdf
Conservation pricing is closely related to another concept called utility decoupling. U.D. encourages utilities to promote conservation for the greater good. However, doing so causes a utility to loose revenue because they sell less electricity or gas. So with U.D., the state allows the utility to raise the rates or assess a flat fee on customers to make up for lost revenue to the utility. The net effect is that the customer uses less electricity or gas. But the reward to the consumer is a society that consumes less, rather than a direct financial benefit of lower energy bills to the consumer. The core rationale for such non-free market approaches such as conservation pricing and utility decoupling is the need to conserve resources for the greater good of society. Here is a link to utility decoupling:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123378473766549301.html
Motor fuel is subject to the same conservation motive, but the individual gas pump metered purchase offers no way to keep track of the broader consumption pattern needed to impose conservation pricing and/or decoupling. However, the new GPS external vehicle management system opens the door wide to the introduction of conservation pricing and/or decoupling. While the GPS management system is basically tracking vehicle location, it could easily track fuel consumption as well. And in addition to pricing driving by the mile and varying that price according to roadway demand to manage traffic flow, the system could also vary the price according to how much gas you are using over a period of time.
When you add this level of sophisticated vehicle management to cars, it will achieve the stated main objectives of HSR better than HSR ever could. So while this new system starts out as a method to get people out of their cars and into HSR, it ends up making HSR obsolete.
If this transition goes foreword, I don’t think it is realistic to assume that it will simply translate the existing gas tax into a mileage tax on a numerically equivalent basis. This new system will open the door to a whole new world of fee structures that will make your phone bill seem like a walk in the woods. The price per mile for driving could change with every revolution of your wheels.
What I am suggesting about the ultimate full application of this system as a traffic management device on page 1 of this thread is only my opinion and assumption, which I wrote in 2005. As far as I know, nobody has published anything that comes to the same conclusions. However, when you connect all the dots, I don’t think it is far fetched at all. It’s inevitable.
The concept of installing GPS computers as mandatory equipment in all vehicles for the purpose of collecting fees per mile driven as a replacement for fuel tax per gallon is not my theory or assumption. That idea is clearly under development in many states and countries, and may only be a few years away. However, there is already a growing public backlash to it for two specific reasons:
1) It is perceived as a tax increase.
2) It is perceived as being too much “Big Brother” because the government will know where you drive and when you drive.
Of the two, it is the perception of “Big Brother” in your car that has people the most worried. It is closely related to the apprehension of the current On Star system, and to the concern about computer chips being secretly embedded in cars to record driver information, as well as the so-called “smart license plates,” which are under development. At this time, the objective for this new system is not intended to increase taxes. It is only to recoup what is considered to be tax avoidance by increasing fuel efficiency of cars. The states argue that every new mile per gallon you get is basically a tax-free mile to drive on roads that cost money to provide
As for the rest of my theory about the ultimate application, all of the components are individually under consideration and being tried in several test applications. So once we have the basic tax-by-mile proposal developed, it will be inevitable to combine it with all of these other traffic control and energy conservation measures. This is truly a marriage made in heaven.
A large part of the objective will be traffic management that will have the effect of increasing roadway capacity. This will undermine the current argument that we have hit a dead end with highway capacity. Also, the comprehensive, automatic traffic law enforcement will bring in enormous amounts of new revenue. This new revenue combined with the savings of manual law enforcement and traffic court costs will more than offset the cost of this new system.
blownout cylinder Bucyrus This will be micromanaging your driving to the extent that you might as well be riding a train or bus. Much of the traffic law enforcement will be taken over by this automatic system as well. If you run a red light, the system will know it and instantly deduct the fine from your pre-paid account. When your account gets to zero, the system disables your engine. This will transform the driving experience as though you have a highway patrol officer riding in your passenger seat. When I was a youngling about 12 I had a book about automotive design that had a section about taking a trip in a car that figured out the route it would take to get you to wherever you wanted to go. There was some kind of a mention of controlling your speed and such as well. I guess these dreams of control were everywhere ----
Bucyrus This will be micromanaging your driving to the extent that you might as well be riding a train or bus. Much of the traffic law enforcement will be taken over by this automatic system as well. If you run a red light, the system will know it and instantly deduct the fine from your pre-paid account. When your account gets to zero, the system disables your engine. This will transform the driving experience as though you have a highway patrol officer riding in your passenger seat.
When I was a youngling about 12 I had a book about automotive design that had a section about taking a trip in a car that figured out the route it would take to get you to wherever you wanted to go. There was some kind of a mention of controlling your speed and such as well. I guess these dreams of control were everywhere ----
There has always been the vision of some sort of automatic system that would drive your car once you tell it where you want to go. Usually, it involved some kind of electronic system embedded in the roadway. But there has always been too much devil in the details to develop a practical system.
What I am expecting with the concept that I described on page 1 of this thread is an overlay system that will monitor driver performance in several ways, but will not actually drive the car as a fully automatic system would. I see this overlay system tracking each vehicle, controlling speed, and checking compliance with traffic control signals and signs, distraction rules, seatbelt use, turn signal operation, vehicle lamp performance, etc.
Here is a link to a study on external speed control for vehicles:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/vehicles/intelligentspeedadaptation/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congestion_pricing
jeaton bc Would a mileage tax really make that much difference? Let's say that the 3500 mile trip was made in an "average" car. At 55 cents a mile, the full cost of the car would be $1925. At 20 miles per gallon @ $2.50 a gallon (we get by cheap down here), gas for the trip is $437.50. At 50 cents per gallon, the gas tax is $87.50. If we replace gas tax with a 3 cents a mile tax the cost of the trip goes up by $17.50. That's going to make a difference on the decision to make the trip? I am willing to bet that a random survey of US drivers proposing as much as a 4 cents per mile driving "fee" to replace existing gas taxes would get a majority in favor of the deal. Mention the pump price of "tax free" gas and I'd bet you would get a 20 point jumb on the favor side.
bc
Would a mileage tax really make that much difference? Let's say that the 3500 mile trip was made in an "average" car. At 55 cents a mile, the full cost of the car would be $1925. At 20 miles per gallon @ $2.50 a gallon (we get by cheap down here), gas for the trip is $437.50. At 50 cents per gallon, the gas tax is $87.50. If we replace gas tax with a 3 cents a mile tax the cost of the trip goes up by $17.50. That's going to make a difference on the decision to make the trip?
I am willing to bet that a random survey of US drivers proposing as much as a 4 cents per mile driving "fee" to replace existing gas taxes would get a majority in favor of the deal. Mention the pump price of "tax free" gas and I'd bet you would get a 20 point jumb on the favor side.
It may not make that much of a difference. IF one does the reduction on the gas side, which I wonder if they would. Myself--I tend to think that any tax will be ADDED TO whatever is out there to begin with. Considering that this seems to be the prevailing behaviour
Now, if there is a reduction on the gas portion then I kinda think that your scenario might work out. The idea of a 'tax free' gas would sound interesting
"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo Possum "We have met the anemone... and he is Russ." Bucky Katt "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." Niels Bohr, Nobel laureate in physics
jeaton Bucyrus jeaton They can buy a tollway transponder and load the fund balance with cash and don't even have to say hello to the clerk that handles the transaction. Can you think of any reason why the box on the car that tracks mileage can't be loaded with funds in the same manner? Indeed, that is part of the vision that I outlined on page 1 where I refer to it as a Driving Privilege Deposit (DPD). There is no way they are going to put all of this control into motor vehicles and then assume the cost of billing drivers and hope they pay. But this will become about so much more than just taxation for roads. This will be micromanaging your driving to the extent that you might as well be riding a train or bus. Much of the traffic law enforcement will be taken over by this automatic system as well. If you run a red light, the system will know it and instantly deduct the fine from your pre-paid account. When your account gets to zero, the system disables your engine. This will transform the driving experience as though you have a highway patrol officer riding in your passenger seat. May we assume that you don't believe in the strict enforcent of traffic laws? I think the majority of the driving public accept prohibitions against running a red light and other traffic regulations as reasonable law. Perhaps except the person that frequently does, gets caught and pays a lot of fines.
Bucyrus jeaton They can buy a tollway transponder and load the fund balance with cash and don't even have to say hello to the clerk that handles the transaction. Can you think of any reason why the box on the car that tracks mileage can't be loaded with funds in the same manner? Indeed, that is part of the vision that I outlined on page 1 where I refer to it as a Driving Privilege Deposit (DPD). There is no way they are going to put all of this control into motor vehicles and then assume the cost of billing drivers and hope they pay. But this will become about so much more than just taxation for roads. This will be micromanaging your driving to the extent that you might as well be riding a train or bus. Much of the traffic law enforcement will be taken over by this automatic system as well. If you run a red light, the system will know it and instantly deduct the fine from your pre-paid account. When your account gets to zero, the system disables your engine. This will transform the driving experience as though you have a highway patrol officer riding in your passenger seat.
jeaton They can buy a tollway transponder and load the fund balance with cash and don't even have to say hello to the clerk that handles the transaction. Can you think of any reason why the box on the car that tracks mileage can't be loaded with funds in the same manner?
They can buy a tollway transponder and load the fund balance with cash and don't even have to say hello to the clerk that handles the transaction.
Can you think of any reason why the box on the car that tracks mileage can't be loaded with funds in the same manner?
May we assume that you don't believe in the strict enforcent of traffic laws? I think the majority of the driving public accept prohibitions against running a red light and other traffic regulations as reasonable law. Perhaps except the person that frequently does, gets caught and pays a lot of fines.
I don’t know why you would assume that. I think you are correct that the majority of the public accepts traffic regulations as reasonable law, but I also think that very few people actually live up to the letter of the law consistently as they drive. Enough of them split hairs at traffic lights to make red light runner cameras awfully unpopular. I would not expect the driving public to welcome the idea of an automatic fine every time they don’t quite pinch it down to a dead stop at a stop sign.
I'd assume he is in this case. The trick is in how it would be done. Consider that the transponder will NOTE this THEN out from your transponder account that $$$ goes. S/he'd be then short that $$$ and the transponder will shut down sooner. The person soon realizes that they need to obey traffic laws if they would like to continue driving. As he posted before driving is a privilege hence you begin to be more careful.
Another thing. A lot of driving that we do today would have to be very carefully planned out. If you are thinking of saving $$$ on your account that side trip you made may be better if it was part of a circuit that "allows" you to do a bunch of things in one trip rather than a bunch of out and back sorties. Another thing that may become an issue with some are those day trips with no particular place to go. That 3500 mile set of day trips that we took this summer may have a few extra $$$$ charged to us then----
As it is it may do a lot more than just micromanage driving habits. IIRC some of the idea that some of the people I hung around with way back when guys like Gordon Ratray Taylor and Paul Ehrlich were around included some black box that would control the trip mileage. Any trip taken had to be within a certain framework--beyond--would be nixed. Anyone care to imagine what tourism would be like?
Railway Man Falcon48: AASHTO - American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials. Not a "study" that compares road damage of cars vs. trucks. That might imply there's some question about the matter. There is no question. The matter is proven by a major body of accepted research backed by several decades of real-world testing and overwhelming emprical data that captures the disproportionate wear on highways of trucks. The unit of measurement for road damage is the ESAL - Equivalent Single Axle Load: An 18,000 lb. truck axle = 1.0 ESAL A typical car axle = 0.002 ESAL A 24,000 lb. truck axle - 3.0 ESAL As you can see, it is not linear with weight: it is exponential: highway wear is related to the load on the axle by a power of four. Thus, if a car creates $1 worth of damage in X highway miles, an 18,000 lb. single axle creates more than $3,000 worth of damage in the same X highway miles. Do truck taxes seem a little low, now? RWM * for further reference, see http://pavementinteractive.org/index.php?title=ESAL
Falcon48:
AASHTO - American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials.
Not a "study" that compares road damage of cars vs. trucks. That might imply there's some question about the matter. There is no question. The matter is proven by a major body of accepted research backed by several decades of real-world testing and overwhelming emprical data that captures the disproportionate wear on highways of trucks.
The unit of measurement for road damage is the ESAL - Equivalent Single Axle Load:
As you can see, it is not linear with weight: it is exponential: highway wear is related to the load on the axle by a power of four. Thus, if a car creates $1 worth of damage in X highway miles, an 18,000 lb. single axle creates more than $3,000 worth of damage in the same X highway miles.
Do truck taxes seem a little low, now?
RWM
* for further reference, see http://pavementinteractive.org/index.php?title=ESAL
Just as information....
The "General" (There are exceptions!) maximum gross highway vehicle weight in the US is 80,000 pounds. This includes the weight of the cargo, tractor, trailer, fuel, driver, everything.
To get to this maximum the weight must be distributed perfectly over all five axles on a typical tractor-trailer combination vehicle. The front, or "steering" axle of the tractor must have 12,000 pounds on it, the tractor tandem rear axles must support a totaf 34,000 pounds and the trailer tandem axles must support 34,000 pounds. There are reasonable tolerances, but the weight distribution on axles of a full weight tractor trailer is, from front to rear, 12K, 17K, 17K, 17K and 17K. The "general" maximum for a tandem axle is that 34,000 pounds. A single axle, other than the steering axle, is limited to 20,000 pounds.
A way around the weight distribution problem is to space the trailer axles more than 10' appart. At a spacing of 121" or more the axles are not considered to be a "tandem" but to be two single axles and each "single" can carry a weight of 20,000. Spacing the trailer axles does not increase the 80,000 gross weight limit for the tractor trailer, but it does give flexibility in distributing the load since the trailer axles can carry 40,000 pounds instead of 34,000 pounds.
"Well, the ICC is a checkin' on down the line, I'm a little overweight and my log book's way behind, but nothin' bothers me tonight, I can dodge all the scales all right, six days on the road and I'm a gonna' make 'er home tonight."
I would like those of you who think to think about this. The US of A Government, 1) greatly hindered the railroads from competing with trucking by blocking the devleopment of domestic containerization for 50 years, 2) set up a subsidy for trucking. Niether of these things was good for the people of the US of A. These government actions wasted lot of fuel, tore up a lot of highway, and drove up the logistics costs in the country.. We've had to pay through the nose for all of this and it's hurt our competitive position in the world. We are literally "poorer" because of these incredibly stupid government actions.
Railway ManThe unit of measurement for road damage is the ESAL - Equivalent Single Axle Load:An 18,000 lb. truck axle = 1.0 ESALA typical car axle = 0.002 ESALA 24,000 lb. truck axle - 3.0 ESAL
RWM,
Thanks for the quantitative information. I'd guess that the figures could be refined by taking factors as unsprung weight (more important for cars), trailer stiffness, etc into account, but as are good enough for policy making.
- Erik
People in the U.S. are always touting the European rail system as something to emulate without realizing how they are funded. When I was in Germany with the U.S. Army from 1980-83 there was a 14 percent sales tax on every item purchased, called a Value Added Tax, and gasoline was taxed so much that a gallon cost almost $6. It's probably higher today.
Indeed, that is part of the vision that I outlined on page 1 where I refer to it as a Driving Privilege Deposit (DPD). There is no way they are going to put all of this control into motor vehicles and then assume the cost of billing drivers and hope they pay. But this will become about so much more than just taxation for roads.
This will be micromanaging your driving to the extent that you might as well be riding a train or bus. Much of the traffic law enforcement will be taken over by this automatic system as well. If you run a red light, the system will know it and instantly deduct the fine from your pre-paid account. When your account gets to zero, the system disables your engine. This will transform the driving experience as though you have a highway patrol officer riding in your passenger seat.
jeatonCan you think of any reason why the box on the car that tracks mileage can't be loaded with funds in the same manner?
There is no reason that it can't. But. If you have a bureaucrat who is something of a control freak he might have an excu---er---reason that's it! whew! to do both regardless of what we may think.
The transponders can be loaded up with all manner of things as well as cash. That is where we have to be careful. An activist style government may have an agenda that we may end up paying for right across the board.
What I was saying is that the total revenue collection from taxes directly applied to all users is only 65% of the total expenditures on streets and highways. You might be correct that an increase on fees applied to vehicles other than automobiles, essentially trucks, might be needed for a closer tie between usage and cost. Of course, the downside to that is that taxes charged directly to the carrier of goods is ultimately passed on to the consumer of those goods. In some ways that might be considered a hidden tax on all purchaser of goods, even those folks who never venture outside of the doors to their home. Not to say that thats bad. I can't figure any other way for motor carriers to recover their costs, unless one expects truck owners and drivers to cover their costs from their income from their gold mines, oil wells and lottery winnings.
I would still have to wonder if a "fair share" increase on trucker taxes would be sufficient to cover the rest of the full highway cost and leave no need for an increase on the direct taxes on automobile owners and drivers. (Edit) After reading RWM's post above perhaps a "fair share" tax on truckers would make up the difference between direct taxes and total costs.
By the way, I always find the grumbling about gas taxes a somewhat humorous form of denial. In Wisconsin, the gas tax is 51.3 cents per gallon and since I get about 20 miles per gallon, that makes my tax cost something under 3 cents per mile. Now compare that to the Internal Revenue Services' figure of 55 cents per mile as the average cost of owning and operating an automobile. Bet if you told the average American that we'll get rid the gasoline tax and drop the auto registration fee to the cost of mailing you the plates or annual sticker and replace it all with a highway user fee of just 3.5 cents per mile- "Where do I sign up? I'll take two."
As for the system being an intrusion of the car owners privacy? "Ve know how far you've driven, what time you left, where you went and when you went to bed last night." If you use a transponder to pay fees on tollroads, you are required to provide your name, address, license plate number, preferably your credit card information and possibly your great grandmother's maiden name. (Pretty much the same for a cell phone which, at least according to leading TV fictional crime shows, allows any law enforcement agency to find your phone and you- unless you left your phone in your other coat pocket). Europeans think that is a big joke. They can buy a tollway transponder and load the fund balance with cash and don't even have to say hello to the clerk that handles the transaction.
Railway Man Falcon48 The question I would ask about the "65%" figure is whether this is a average of the cost recovery across all highway users, as I suspect it is. I can't readily lay my hands on them, but I've seen studies showing that autos do pay their full costs, and then some. But the heavier vehicles don't even come close. If this is the case, what's happening is that auto users are cross subsidizing the larger vehicles, but the total amount collected in taxes is less than the total amount required. It does make sense, as the infrastructure required for light vehicles such as autos wouldn't be as expensive as an infrastructure designed for heavy vehicles, and it wouldn't wear out nearly as quickly as roads that are beaten up by heavy truck traffic. I've seen AAHSTO studies (I probably got the acronym wrong) showing that road degredation increases exponentially with vehicle weight (I vaguely recall an analysis showing that one pass of a heavy truck is equivalent in road damage to several thousand cars). Falcon48: AASHTO - American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials. Not a "study" that compares road damage of cars vs. trucks. That might imply there's some question about the matter. There is no question. The matter is proven by a major body of accepted research backed by several decades of real-world testing and overwhelming emprical data that captures the disproportionate wear on highways of trucks. The unit of measurement for road damage is the ESAL - Equivalent Single Axle Load: An 18,000 lb. truck axle = 1.0 ESAL A typical car axle = 0.002 ESAL A 24,000 lb. truck axle - 3.0 ESAL As you can see, it is not linear with weight: it is exponential: highway wear is related to the load on the axle by a power of four. Thus, if a car creates $1 worth of damage in X highway miles, an 18,000 lb. single axle creates more than $3,000 worth of damage in the same X highway miles. Do truck taxes seem a little low, now? RWM * for further reference, see http://pavementinteractive.org/index.php?title=ESAL
Falcon48 The question I would ask about the "65%" figure is whether this is a average of the cost recovery across all highway users, as I suspect it is. I can't readily lay my hands on them, but I've seen studies showing that autos do pay their full costs, and then some. But the heavier vehicles don't even come close. If this is the case, what's happening is that auto users are cross subsidizing the larger vehicles, but the total amount collected in taxes is less than the total amount required. It does make sense, as the infrastructure required for light vehicles such as autos wouldn't be as expensive as an infrastructure designed for heavy vehicles, and it wouldn't wear out nearly as quickly as roads that are beaten up by heavy truck traffic. I've seen AAHSTO studies (I probably got the acronym wrong) showing that road degredation increases exponentially with vehicle weight (I vaguely recall an analysis showing that one pass of a heavy truck is equivalent in road damage to several thousand cars).
The "public policy" aspect to this is that higher "user" taxes on autos can't be justified on the grounds that highway users aren't "paying their way". Auto users are, in fact, "paying their way". They're not only "paying their way", but they are also cross subsidizing a good portion of the highway costs imposed by heavy trucks. The fact that the cross subsidy isn't enough to cover the deficit between the costs imposed by heavy trucks and the user taxes paid by them isn't a justification to increase auto user taxes.
Falcon48 If this is the case, what's happening is that auto users are cross subsidizing the larger vehicles, but the total amount collected in taxes is less than the total amount required. It does make sense, as the infrastructure required for light vehicles such as autos wouldn't be as expensive as an infrastructure designed for heavy vehicles, and it wouldn't wear out nearly as quickly as roads that are beaten up by heavy truck traffic. I've seen AAHSTO studies (I probably got the acronym wrong) showing that road degredation increases exponentially with vehicle weight (I vaguely recall an analysis showing that one pass of a heavy truck is equivalent in road damage to several thousand cars).
Wow!! The truck folks aren't going to be happy if they see your comment.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
jeaton It is an interesting study and the concept of a direct user fee (nice euphanism for tax) will be a sap for those who insist that they only want to pay taxes for those things that provide them a direct benefit. The idea has been previously discussed here on the forum and my thought that conversion to another system to collect could be very expensive. In addition to the of the new black box that would have to be installed in every vehicle, the cost to install the infrastructure to collect the tax will probably bring the total to many billions. Another wrinkle. The current fuel taxes, licensing and fees, and tolls laid directly on vehicle owner/operators only pay about 65% of the total cost to build and maintain our streets and highways. The balance is paid out of general tax revenues, property taxes and other miscellaneous revenue sources. If all the street and highway cost was paid directly by the users, there would sure be a big jump in the cost of operating a car. Hmmmm...
It is an interesting study and the concept of a direct user fee (nice euphanism for tax) will be a sap for those who insist that they only want to pay taxes for those things that provide them a direct benefit.
The idea has been previously discussed here on the forum and my thought that conversion to another system to collect could be very expensive. In addition to the of the new black box that would have to be installed in every vehicle, the cost to install the infrastructure to collect the tax will probably bring the total to many billions.
Another wrinkle. The current fuel taxes, licensing and fees, and tolls laid directly on vehicle owner/operators only pay about 65% of the total cost to build and maintain our streets and highways. The balance is paid out of general tax revenues, property taxes and other miscellaneous revenue sources. If all the street and highway cost was paid directly by the users, there would sure be a big jump in the cost of operating a car.
Hmmmm...
samfp1943 henry6 Another passenger rail-transportation-subsidy question-no government intervention, only private enterprise thread-my politics are better than your politics on R:NR (Rhetoric: No Resolve). Not a thread but another Merry Go Round! Henschel closed shop North Tonawanda years ago!! Henry6: Te ability to tax transportation for its use seems to be real issue on the horizon, As the linked pieces indicate. Many studies are mostly academic exercises, and go nowhere. Basicly, the linked studies show some efforts to identify hardware that can be used to create a data base that could be used as a resource for use taxation by Government entities. I thought that the thread by Bucycrus showed a lot of thought on the subject. I started the thread hoping to read some feedback from some of the members here. There is a large body of knowledge represented here in this Forum; not only professional associations, but practical associations, and many members who read and keep up in their various areas of interest. Hopefully, we do not fall into the trap of character assination or political points of view, maybe we can be fortunate to discuss this topic without the pitfalls,although they are on the edge of the conversation. We are not going to resolve this issue here, but maybe we can gain some thoughtful input as to this looming possibility of changing the way we all get about this country, and how we pay for that priviledge. You seem to have some pretty strong ideas as to what is going to happen to passenger rail. I wish you'd share those ideas, Thanks.
henry6 Another passenger rail-transportation-subsidy question-no government intervention, only private enterprise thread-my politics are better than your politics on R:NR (Rhetoric: No Resolve). Not a thread but another Merry Go Round! Henschel closed shop North Tonawanda years ago!!
Another passenger rail-transportation-subsidy question-no government intervention, only private enterprise thread-my politics are better than your politics on R:NR (Rhetoric: No Resolve). Not a thread but another Merry Go Round! Henschel closed shop North Tonawanda years ago!!
Henry6:
Te ability to tax transportation for its use seems to be real issue on the horizon, As the linked pieces indicate.
Many studies are mostly academic exercises, and go nowhere. Basicly, the linked studies show some efforts to identify hardware that can be used to create a data base that could be used as a resource for use taxation by Government entities. I thought that the thread by Bucycrus showed a lot of thought on the subject.
I started the thread hoping to read some feedback from some of the members here. There is a large body of knowledge represented here in this Forum; not only professional associations, but practical associations, and many members who read and keep up in their various areas of interest.
Hopefully, we do not fall into the trap of character assination or political points of view, maybe we can be fortunate to discuss this topic without the pitfalls,although they are on the edge of the conversation.
We are not going to resolve this issue here, but maybe we can gain some thoughtful input as to this looming possibility of changing the way we all get about this country, and how we pay for that priviledge. You seem to have some pretty strong ideas as to what is going to happen to passenger rail. I wish you'd share those ideas, Thanks.
The problem is that there is a handful of wags who say the same thing over and over and are refuted by several other same wags again and again. There has to be at least three threads right now dealing with this same subjec and there has been I don't know how many more in the past year. Too many on here are here to posture and argue with a bent toward keeping the arguement going by splitting hairs or making broad generalizations, sometimes in the same breath. This is not a new thread but rather a thread transposing all threads before which will lead to the same rhetoric and eventually another thread to seem like it's a new topic.
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
Back in my palmier days I hung around certain groups of social activists who, believe it or not, did actually think along the lines of a means of transportation control Bucyrus is mentioning here. These guys had joined several causes such as environmentalist groups as well as some other groups allied against the BIG OIL "conspiracy" and spent a lot of time coming up with things like this precisely for "social control". You should have seen some of the rants that were printed out in our mimeographs! OY!!
Now---some have jumped on this as a kind of strawman arguement but here we see that some groups did take it seriously enough to start writing about this in the open
Again----OY
After reading the 'big brother takes over' scenario, I'm ROFLMAO!!!
Anyone who thinks that the rebellious, anti-government, computer-savvy population will simply stand there and let the government put them in a transportation straitjacket is hallucinating. Just as soon as it becomes clear that such a movement is beginning, the rebels will come up with any number of ways to trash the electronics - anything from disconnecting one unit and wiring around it to loading up the account of their favorite politician or activist with bogus fines and fees to electronically gutting the entire system.
If individual hackers can create havoc through the internet, just think of the fun they could have with a transportation control system they have reason to hate!
Chuck
The printed "Trains" magazine would also become quite expensive under this scenario as it would be deemed "unrequired" and thus be subject to a user fee for transportation, thus moving content to electronic delivery.
The movement is happening now...my three daily newspapers are barely the equivelent to one paper five years ago.
Gee, we havent even discussed health care yet, nor should we as that will certainly lead to lockage.
ed
George,Bucyrus, Butch K :
I would suspect (as we fast forward to a future time and date) that personal trips, now taken a whim to go anywhere, to do anything, will require an unaccustomed (in our current date and time) level of planning and coordination.
Bucyrus mentions personal transportation devices (PTD's) for which we pay Driving Priviledge Deposits (DPD). I would further suspect that the cost of personal transportation will be almost prohibitedly expensive, to the point of sereral groups (Families, etc) sharing the same vehicle.
With each vehicle equipped with some sort of a GPS tracking device (plus maybe a government monitored meter system). A Federal (or State) Revenue Tracking Agency would be monitoring and whoever was registered in that particular PTD for that specific destination would receive a Revenue Billing covering that trip. ( envision something like a Phone BIll or Cable TV bill). With a Basic Charge and a whole host of ancillary charges.
The Sociological, and psychological implications of life in that Future stagger the imagination with all its possibilities of intrusion into every facet of our personal lives. Particularly, if one chooses to use any form of privately (?) managed transport to get about. Envision a world of Public Transportation utilizing anything from a Government owned PTD to Busses, and any form of tracked public transport imaginable; limited by the political imagination of Government Bureaucrats of the time- not to mention a vast set of user fees for those needing to get somewhere (costs/fees will be comensurate with the speed of travel desired).
Science Fiction??? Look at what has happened to personal transportation in just the last 100 years! You have to wonder if George Orwell was on to something,I certainly hope not.
The one sure aspect of this whole scenario is that Amderican Taxpayers will get the bill for all the progress, and who knows how that will turn out. We all are aware that taxes never go away or decrease with time.
The days of just watching 844 or 3985 streak by with an Armour Yellow consist or some other tourist operation may very well exist only in old men's memories, worn copies of magazines(ie: TRAINS,etc.). Railfanning will be precluded by security restrictions and obnoxious enforcement that keep people so far from the tracks binocullars will not get a clear view of activity. Riders in public transport will be bombarded by all mannor of advertisements, whose revenue is used to keep prices low(?).
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.