This paper focuses on one alternative source of revenue—a mileage-based user fee—as a potential substitute for the current gasoline excise tax. It examines one of many questions that arise when this source of funding is considered—the potential for differential financial effects on urban and rural households. The issue has been characterized as one of “equity,” and more specifically whether rural households will pay a disproportionately greater share of the costs if states transition from a fuel-consumption-based to a mileage-based funding system. This paper presents an approach to address this question using existing sources of data and a set of assumptions designed to assess a “revenue-neutral” substitution of mileage-based charges for the current gasoline excise tax. Based on the methods used in this paper, it appears that rural households may, in fact, benefit from introduction of a mileage-based fee because they will pay less than under the current system in all states investigated for this study.

Transportation network companies (TNCs) offer two types of service: private-party ridehailing and shared ridehailing. Policymakers have an interest in encouraging shared over private ridehailing to promote more efficient use of the transportation network. While transportation researchers have analyzed ridehailing behavior before, there is limited literature describing the effect of price and time on a rider’s choice between private-party and shared ridehailing. This paper fills this gap by analyzing revealed preferences for private-party and shared ridehailing trips in 15 American cities coupled with a survey of 4,365 users of a large TNC that includes stated preference questions focused on various alternative options for their most recent trip choice. This study finds that an increase in the relative price difference of $1 per mile increases an individual’s probability of sharing by over 8%, while a decrease in the relative travel time difference of 1 min per mile increases the probability of sharing by over 33%. The survey results also show that that a sizable proportion of private-party TNC trips (approximately 35%) will be difficult or even impossible to convert to shared rides through a price-based incentive. Market segmentation analysis reveals user and trip types where price- and time-based incentives have a relatively greater effect on the choice between private and shared rides. Finally, heterogeneity in user time versus money trade-offs suggests new product possibilities that would increase TNC sharing.

One of the most important features of comprehensive land use and transport planning is an ability to identify candidate projects and policies that are adding value to the sustainable performance of transport networks and to the economy as a whole. Standard methods of identifying a shortlist of projects to assess are often qualitative in nature and/or influenced by prejudices of elected officials or their advisers without a systematic way of narrowing the many potential options to evaluate, in sufficient detail, a truly value-adding set. There is a case to be made for having a capability to undertake, in a timely manner, a scan of a large number of potentially worthy projects and policies that can offer forecasts of passenger and freight demand, benefit–costs ratios and economy-wide outcomes. Such a framework would then be meaningful in the sense of offering outputs that are similar to those that are the focus of assessments that are typically spread over many months, if not years, on very few projects, which may exclude those which have the greatest merit. This paper introduces MetroScan, a strategic-level transport and land use planning application system that allows for mapping of passenger and freight activity, as well as an endogenous treatment of the location of households and firms. We summarise the analytical framework of MetroScan and show its capability (including the many useful outputs) with a case study for a 25 percent reduction in public transport fares across the entire network.

This paper explores the feasibility and sensitivity of a mileage-based road usage charge (RUC) as an alternative to the gas tax. The specific purpose is to evaluate factors that could be considered when setting a charge to account for the complex makeup of statewide motor fleets, and to consider the diversity of household driving behaviors and experiences. The researchers considered a range of potential parameters before choosing to focus on fuel type and fuel efficiency. If based on annually adjusted efficiency quantiles, a parameterized RUC could prevent revenue erosion over time. Formulas based on these parameters were compared with the current fuel excise tax and a flat RUC. Distributional effects of parameters were assessed for urban, mixed, and rural household categories, and for vehicles of different fuel types. Results show that households in urban tracts tend to pay slightly more under all formulations, and households in mixed and rural tracts pay less compared with an excise-based gas tax. In addition to changes across regions of a state, the method allows examination of the groups within these categories. Research found that adjusting for fuel efficiency reduced the change in incidence between urban, mixed, and rural census tracts, and between fuel types, that results from moving to a flat RUC. Fuel type parameters resulted in only small differences from the flat rate RUC because of low alternative fuel penetration in most states. This may change over time depending on the rate of integration of alternative fuels into the passenger car fleet.

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