In the US, the National Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission's report to Congress will state that a national, distance-based charging is the only long-term solution to the country's infrastructure financing problems. The Commission's Chair, Rob Atkinson, talks to ITS International
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In the US, as this edition of
Huge shortfall With the Federal Highway Trust Fund effectively going broke - a statement that is technically if not functionally correct, according to Robert D.
"We need to look at funding in both the short to medium term and in the longer term. As well as doing a lot more, we need to do it smarter," he says.
"The big issue is to look at how we raise the money. Only about 60 per cent of the funding which currently goes into the network comes from user fees such as gas tax, tolls and vehicle registration. The other 40 per cent has no effect on driver behaviour. If anything, there should be an even greater emphasis on pricing - such as VMT - as that will provide people with greater incentive to make choices over whether to telecommute, car-share, use transit or defer travel."
Value transfer There are, he notes, quite a number of misconceptions when it comes to congestion pricing and pricing for other marginal costs: "The revenues raised can be used to expand capacity. People miss that point. But perhaps the biggest misunderstanding over marginal pricing is that it is not a cost to society. Road building or the installation of some form of ITS system, that's a societal cost, and one which also provides a benefit; marginal prices, however, are a transfer payment from one group of people to another.
"And, here in the US, if we're in the midst of an effort to reduce CO2 emissions, why are we continuing to subsidise driving? Studies in the Washington, DC area have shown that the cost of driving would actually be up to 10 times higher than the gas tax if we took into account congestion, emissions, safety, noise and infrastructure wear. If we don't count the external costs, much less charge drivers the full costs of using the system, why is society continuing to pay for the rest? "In the short term, therefore, we need to raise more revenues but in line with that principle of not subsidising. We need to raise the level of fuel tax - if we don't, we consign drivers to even more unpleasant conditions than they experience now. If we raise the level too much, however, it'll become a blunt instrument which will also reduce the effort to move to a user pays-type scheme. The increases we've proposed will give us an extra $20bn a year.
"Plus, we need to take aggressive moves to realise more tolling. More hasn't been done to date because state officials have tended to worry about voter reactions. State DOTs have not utilised tolling as much as they could as a result. So we need to look at how we get past the tipping point. We need to remove or reduce Federal barriers. We need to look at the option of tolling on congested sections of interstate. We should look at allocating a share of revenues from the fuel tax increase to a Federal fund which can be used to incentivise states' moves towards more tolling."
VMT - ASAP In the longer term, Atkinson advocates a national satellite (GPS)-based solution for any national pricing system. This, he says, is the only way to achieve a universal system at anything like an affordable cost.
"The only way to achieve a universal system is at the Federal level. Whether states and localities then piggyback off that is their decision. A Federal charge would be levied only on Federal sections of the highway system. This allows VMT or Time/Distance/Place [TDP] charging and addresses the issue of diversion [or rat-running].
"Also, with a satellite system you can price every road. For example, with heavy trucks you can use onboard axle weighing as a factor in calculation. If a truck were to divert onto a road that hadn't been built to take its weight you could factor the damage into any charge. There's no way of reflecting that cost at the moment." Atkinson envisages starting the transition away from the gas tax no later than 2020. Cost is always going to be a factor in any scheme's deployment and any proposed VMT solution will potentially be vying with other major projects, such as Vehicle-Infrastructure Integration (VII), for support. But there are mitigating factors, he feels.
"VII is a lot harder to do than VMT in many respects. A lot of any VMT system is a fixed cost as opposed to marginal. You've got to have a satellite navigation system and a back office solution but you can then spread the cost over the user base - and we have the advantage here in the US, when compared with many other countries, of a large user base. That makes the system more readily achievable.
"VII is in many respects unproven at the moment and you can't price every road with it. That pushes us towards a satellite-based system. Trials in Oregon proved that satellite-based systems worked very well but we need additional pilots, including some to look at the needs of specific user groups such as the freight industry.
"But, fundamentally, we need perspective. We conceptualised, designed and built the atom bomb in less time than we're talking about here for deployment of a VMT system. And a VMT system isn't an invention need - much, if not all, of the technology already exists."
Private sector involvement The greater influence of the private sector would follow a trend. Much of the US's infrastructure, such as the telecommunications and some of its water networks, are already in private hands. Most roads remain public but even privately held toll roads are subsidised to an extent because of the diversion problem, Atkinson says.
"With VMT and all roads covered, the large price advantage of 'free' public roads would be removed," he continues. "That means we could move to much more use of private roads. These would still be properly regulated facilities but we'd have the benefits of being able to raise prices and build capacity much more easily." There would also be a positive effect on driver habits, he notes: "During the Oregon trials, even with a revenue-neutral fee unrelated to the time of day, people still drove less. That's counter-intuitive - people were still paying the same as before - but there was a greater level of awareness. Currently, people tend to assume that road use is free."
Technological and political progress Atkinson can track his personal involvement in ITS studies back to 1994, when he worked in the now-defunct Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. He sees several historical reasons for why the US has failed thus far to take the sorts of steps he is promoting.
"One is that the technology has taken time to mature. Go back 10 years, and IT was in a client/server/Web-based phase. Now, IT is more dispersed. It's out there in the world and we can interact with it. That means deployment is attainable." There is no denying, however, that many if not all of the Commission's recommendations have been forecast or pushed for by the more forward-looking members of the transport community for quite some time now. There remains the question of just how much impact the Commission's report will have.
Atkinson: "Will our report convince Congress to do exactly what we recommend? I don't know. But I believe the report will become a benchmark. No other committee has reached conclusions as strong as ours or within the optimised framework in which we've been operating. I think we can expect to see some movement within the next Transportation Reauthorization Bill which will reflect some of the report's findings. I'm an unrepentant technological determinist and I think that once a technology develops to a point of providing overwhelming value, then it will happen. I think we're there now.
"One area which I think needs to be looked at is how a VMT system might integrate with traveller information systems. Ultimately, that might not be possible but it's something that I'd like to see happen."
The Doomsday scenario Doing nothing is not an option. Unless there is significantly more investment, the US will simply be unable to address the problems it currently faces.
"The current experiences of urban drivers will become more widespread and the experiences of urban drivers will simply worsen," Atkinson continues. "People will have to accept that their kids will spend a lot more time sitting in traffic, and goods and services will become a lot more expensive. We'll face mounting safety and maintenance issues.
"We won't see a situation in the US where everyone moves to transit despite what smart growth advocates might want - we're too dispersed an urban form.
"But the system we're advocating deploying 10 years from now can be revenue-neutral. Certain user types, such as the freight sector, will benefit more. There are non-technical challenges to overcome, however. One is that US society has become more conservative, in the sense of being more cautious about embracing big innovations,
"I think that by comparison there is a greater willingness in some other countries to recognise government's role in enabling key investments. Global economic competitiveness is tied to deployment but there is the continuing assumption among many in the US that its economy will always be Number One.
"If one looks at other countries, particularly in Asia, there is a tendency to just go ahead and deploy. We, by comparison, tend to delay moving forward because of concerns over issues such as privacy.
Many privacy advocates will fan the flames of fear but it is possible to design a system where privacy is completely protected.
"What we need is visionary leadership. People might see the current economic situation as a hindrance to deployment but the reality is that we'll likely be heading out of recession next year. People might be worried at the moment but that thinking can't and shouldn't last forever."
