I believe further evidence that tolling is likely to be in our future can be found in an article in yesterday’s New York Times about advances in tolling technology and use.
Technology adoption follows a predictable curve. One of the signs that a technology is going mainstream is that some providers start simplifying it and providing alternative approaches.
I believe further evidence that tolling is likely to be in our future can be found in an article in yesterday’s New York Times about advances in tolling technology and use.
Some of the indicators:
- Regional ‘transponder’ systems like E-ZPass, SunPass and FasTrak are trying to cross-connect their systems so your transponder works anywhere.
- Budget Rent a Car is offering transponder rentals with their cars and promoting it as a competitive advantage.
- Another provider is touting a transponder-less system, you just give them your plate number and credit card number and their cameras will get your plate number as you drive through the toll gate and bill you.
I wonder if those cameras can track my 17-year-old and tell me where he’s taking the car?
29 responses to “Tolling Technology Advances”
I wonder if those cameras can track my 17-year-old and tell me where he’s taking the car?
Probably, with all the privacy questions that entails. But you can get a gps system that will do that too. The question is whether GPS systems for location specific pricing for auto insurance will extend to auto taxes as well. It may be that every road can be a toll road with people being charged depending on the how much they actually use the system instead of flat fees, gas taxes and partial tolls.
Tolls are clearly on the regional agenda. The question for alternative transportation advocates is whether they will be made to fully cover the cost of the new auto capcity or whether they will be subsidized at the expense of transportation alternatives and basic road maintenance.
I was mostly joking about the 17-year-old. But it’s true that the limit case of tolling everything is essentially to create a VMT tax, which more people seem to be warming to. And the technologies involved in that DO raise privacy issues that will have to be worked out.
Why is a VMT necessarily better than a gas tax?
A gas tax tends to penalize heavier vehicles, but heavier vehicles put more wear on the road.
A gas tax incentivizes the purchase of hybrid cars. While this does not directly improve the road maintenance aspect, expending less fuel is a desirable goal. As more and more vehicles switch to hybrid power-trains over the next decade, the disparity in revenues between hybrid and non-hybrid vehicles will become less relevant.
I can understand tolls to pay for projects which benefit the specific users of the tolled infrastructure more than users of the system as a whole, such as bridges and tunnels, but wouldn’t a VMT tax (in place of tolls) provide further distortion of spending priorities rather than further clarification?
We’ve come this far with transportation systems without the government having to know the daily travel itineraries of every citizen. Why give up that level of privacy now?
Of course we _can_ do these things on a technical level, but _must_ we do them?
I think the gas tax works just fine as a general principle… of course current anti-tax sentiment prevents increasing the tax to match the projects that need to be done, but that same anti-tax sentiment would likely apply to any VMT-tax scheme.
I would propose a revenue-neutral switch of the gas tax from being a “pennies per gallon” to “percentage per gallon”, more like a sales-tax. Therefore, revenues would adjust up with gas price inflation. Eventually, as gas prices increased sufficiently, VMT growth would diminish, and maintenance projects would have the ability to catch up to the backlog of work already identified.
You could conceivably combine the weight and class of vehicle with a VMT tax, but where would that get you? You’d have something very similar (as an end result) to a gas tax anyway.
– Bob R.
If nothing else, a VMT tax maintains its buying power as fuel efficiency increases. A gas tax loses buying power under the same conditions. Of course, both need to be linked to inflation to maintain the their buying power, as the current gas tax is not.
You’d have something very similar (as an end result) to a gas tax anyway.
That depends on how it is structured. If we are talking just about vehicle miles travelled then yes, and that doesn’t really raise privacy issues it can be done with a meter on the vehicle.
But the actual cost of provding roads depends on more than miles travelled and the weight of the vehicle. It also depends on where and when those miles are travelled. The cost of providing capacity needed at midweek rush hour is much different than the capacity needed for most of the rest of the day. So if you only use the roads at night and weekends you are paying for capacity that does not serve you. On the other hand, people who drive by themselves to work every day aren’t paying the full cost of that choice.
If you simply eliminate the need for additional peak capacity you could probably reduce current taxes. There is more than enough for maintenance of a basic road system. It is the demand for an uncongested road network during peak use that creates all the demand for new capacity.
Using GPS you can actually determine when and where an auto travelled and charge accordingly. If you add a lane across the Columbia and say that its going to be fully paid for by people who use that lane during rush hour because that is the only time it is needed, you probably won’t build the lane. If you do it will be clear this is a very expensive luxury for those that choose to use it.
With GPS you can do the same calculation for every street. You determine how much does it cost to build and maintain and then you charge those who use it accordingly. You can even factor in the weight of the vehicle to those calculations if you want. If there are extra costs to a road that will stand up to heavy trucks, you can charge the heavy trucks that actually make use of that road accordingly.
There are obviously huge privacy issues with this.
Just one more thought:
It would be interesting to know what would happen if costs were perfectly allocated for roads. I suspect it would end a lot of neighborhood traffic problems. The cost of using lightly travelled neighborhood streets would be just too high when compared to sharing the cost of a heavily travelled arterial. I suspect there would be some surprises over where the actual costs were and who would pay them.
I also think the privacy issues are fairly easy to resolve. The real problem is that there are a lot of big winners in the current system and reallocating the actual costs to them would be very difficult politically.
Two thoughts:
1. Right now, especially with the current political climate, I’d much rather risk paying too much in gas taxes for other drivers who use more infrastructure than I do, rather than allowing the government easy access to my complete travel details.
2. Instead of calculating everyone’s VMT and GPS coordinates to determine the allocation of resources, why not use an array of paid “volunteers” selected as a representative sample of the state’s population and track THEIR travel habits. Consider it a real-time, highly accurate behavior survey. Sort of a Nielsen ratings for roadway usage.
– Bob R.
1. Right now, especially with the current political climate, I’d much rather risk paying too much in gas taxes for other drivers who use more infrastructure than I do, rather than allowing the government easy access to my complete travel details.
I doubt that it is necessary for the government to have any access. A meter in the vehicle would need to know where it was, the time of day and the cost for using the facility to calculate the cost. The only information that would need to be recorded is the cost. You could either have pre-payment like postage meters. Or you could have the meter read the way utilities do. Either way there would be no record of where someone travelled.
I am sure there are other, perhaps better, solutions to the privacy problems.
I’d much rather risk paying too much in gas taxes for other drivers who use more infrastructure than I do
I don’t think the problem is just paying more than other drivers. The problem is that without accurate economic signals people make costly choices that are paid for by all of us.
That new house in rural Clark County looks cheap if most of your transportation cost is paid by the general public. Perhaps that house isn’t so cheap if you have to pay the full cost of transportation yourself.
Virtually the entire federal highway budget is paying for projects that probably wouldn’t be necessary if people didn’t all insist on driving at the same time each day. Yet the cost to drivers at peak is no different than driving when the roads are empty and only one lane is really needed.
Virtually the entire federal highway budget is paying for projects that probably wouldn’t be necessary if people didn’t all insist on driving at the same time each day.
People are going to “insist” (as though that many have a choice) on traveling during peak periods so long as there is a day and a night, and so long as businesses need to communicate with customers and other businesses in their geographic area in real-time.
Now, I personally work from home. Almost everything I do is via email and phone. And yet, I keep the same hours as everyone else. Why? Because my customers know when I can be contacted if they need an answer right away, and I know that I can get in touch with my vendors and other customers in a similar fashion.
The pattern of getting up with the sun, getting work done, and unwinding in the evening hours isn’t just “insisting”, for a majority of the population it’s normal.
Telecommuting options will continue to grow, the economy will continue to globalize, and customer service via asynchronous communication (email) will continue to grow, but it will be a long, long, long time (if ever) before peak travel demands subside.
Note that this isn’t just about autos. Transit experiences peak travel patterns as well (obviously.) In my opinion, for people with a regular defined commute pattern, transit is more efficient at scaling to meet peak demands.
Look at the least-auto-dependent major city in this country, New York, especially the boro of Manhattan. Still very tied to peak period travel. I don’t think it’s about “insisting” at all.
I doubt that it is necessary for the government to have any access.
If the data is there and it relates to taxes, the government will want to collect it.
With an “EzPass” type of system like many areas have today, the government does know that you passed a certain toll point at a certain time of day, but they don’t have information about your entire journey, whose house you parked in front of for 6 hours, what church’s anti-war meeting you attended, etc. All of that can be easily data-mined from GPS data.
Right now, many constitutional experts believe it is illegal for the NSA to listen in on the phone calls of American citizens without a warrant. That’s what the FISA court is for. And yet, gosh, somehow it seems to have happened hundreds of not thousands of times under the current administration. And, so far, without consequence. Nope, I’d rather that the data did not exist at all.
And, I don’t want a “meter” in my car that does NOT keep the data but tells me how much I owe. That creates another serious (but less menacing) problem: How do I prove I’m right when I think I’ve been overcharged?
– Bob R.
The pattern of getting up with the sun, getting work done, and unwinding in the evening hours isn’t just “insisting”, for a majority of the population it’s normal.
When, how and where people choose to travel is a choice.
If you live a 20 minute walk from work, you don’t need to worry about peak travel congestion. People can choose where to live and where to work and where to shop. In fact they do, based on how long it takes to get there.
If the data is there and it relates to taxes, the government will want to collect it.
No more than paying for postage means the government has a record of where your letter went.
All of that can be easily data-mined from GPS data.
No. It can’t. GPS data tells the receiver where it is, unless the receiver stores that information and/or provides it to the government it can’t be mined at all. There are GPS systems whose purpose is to provide tracking data, but that isn’t inherent in the technology.
And, I don’t want a “meter” in my car that does NOT keep the data but tells me how much I owe. That creates another serious (but less menacing) problem: How do I prove I’m right when I think I’ve been overcharged?
How do you know you aren’t being overcharged at the pump?
How do you know you aren’t being overcharged at the pump?
I know how big my fuel tank is and I know approximately how many gallons my tank takes when the fuel gauge is at a certain point.
Beyond that, for further accuracy, we have a government inspection program (which is sadly understaffed) which inspects the pumping facilities periodically. They inspect the gas station — they don’t inspect ME.
No. It can’t. GPS data tells the receiver where it is, unless the receiver stores that information and/or provides it to the government it can’t be mined at all. There are GPS systems whose purpose is to provide tracking data, but that isn’t inherent in the technology.
I know how GPS works. I am a software developer by trade. I even own a NAV system. (And I know how to delete the trip history should I care to.)
If you have a GPS tolling system that keeps no records, then there is no audit trail and now way to prevent fraud or to rectify errors.
If you have a GPS system which does retain data, how long do you think it will be before the government wants its hands on that data?
I’m glad you really trust the Bush administration (and all subsequent administrations after GPS tolling is deployed) not to abuse the technology.
The gas tax and vehicle registration taxes are passive. I pay them when I renew my tags and when I fill up. I can do both with cash if I want.
A GPS-based tax would necessarily involve the government forcing me to place a device in my vehicle with the sole purpose of monitoring/taxing my actual activity.
To police fraud, instead of auditing gas stations, the government would have to police every driver.
There are all kinds of vehicle taxes I would support. GPS-based is NOT one of them.
– Bob R.
To police fraud, instead of auditing gas stations, the government would have to police every driver.
Well, yes. Don’t they already do that? Drivers licenses, vehicle licenses, even photo radar? The point is that GPS is actually more anonymous and less intrusive. The only policing needed is for someone to purchase useage for a vehicle in some fashion. Water, gas and electric meters monitor your personal activity. This would not necessarily be any more intrusive, it probably could be made less. It certainly is less intrusive than transponder technology that tracks each toll gate a vehicle passes through and stores that data in a central computer.
The biggest political barrier of course is resistance to change.
Well, yes. Don’t they already do that?
No, not to such an invasive extent.
Drivers licenses
Done every so many years per driver.
vehicle licenses
Can be done entirely by mail. Only happens at time of vehicle sale and then every 2 years for registration.
even photo radar
Photo Radar only makes a record of an event after a violation has occurred. If Photo Radar actually kept a record of every car that passed a certain intersection, I’d oppose it.
The point is that GPS is actually more anonymous and less intrusive.
No, it is not more anonymous. As I have already outlined, if it is to have any audit capability whatsoever, it has to keep a record of your travels.
Water, gas and electric meters monitor your personal activity.
No, not quite. They monitor usage of a resource within a monthly or quarterly period. There is not a lot the government can do to me because my natural gas usage goes up or down by 10%. (But, for an exception: There are instances of electric meter activity being the basis for people being investigated for drug cultivation.)
The biggest political barrier of course is resistance to change.
I’m not resistant to change at all. There’s all kinds of changes I embrace. Not this one.
if it is to have any audit capability whatsoever, it has to keep a record of your travels.
The only one with a need to “audit” anything is you. There are probably dozens of ways to give it to you without giving it to the government, if you think you need that ability, But how do you audit your water meter? The government would have to inspect the meter to assure its integrity. But how is that different than checking your water meter?
There is not a lot the government can do to me because my natural gas usage goes up or down by 10%.
Nor is there much government can do because your useage of your car goes up and down by 10%. I don’t see the difference between metering auto useage and water useage.A GPS auto meter is going to be more complex and may be less reliable, but that isn’t necessarily the case.
Can be done entirely by mail.
I think you are forgetting the point of licenses, they identify your car and you. Government uses them every time a police officer checks your license plate or your drivers license. We already give up a lot of our anonymity to government when we get behind the wheel. Having a meter for our useage isn’t going to change that.
Bob –
You keep insisting that we can’t meter car useage without creating a record of when and where we travel. I don’t agree and we will just have to agree to disagree on that point.
Ross –
We can meter car _usage_ using the odometer. It’s called a VMT tax. It does not need to disclose where you’ve been.
A GPS system, from what has been posted in this thread, would bill at different rates at different times of day and at different rates for different types of roads and locations. Otherwise, what’s the point?
And if such a unit is to have any kind of auditing capability, then it must keep records and someone is going to want to access those records.
Unless the entire tax collection system is going to be paper-based (what a waste), the GPS tax device will have to wirelessly transmit at least the very basic “amount owed” information to some kind of receiver. Thus, the mechanism for sharing of more than the basic data would already be in place.
How long would it be before there are calls (in the name of “preventing terrorism” or perhaps “preventing child abuse”) before the government wants to track the travel habits of citizens?
And if you insist that the unit doesn’t need to keep a record and doesn’t need to wirelessly transmit data, then I can think of dozens of ways to defeat the unit and not pay a tax. If such fraud became widespread, the public would demand an audit-capability and we’d be right back to storing travel data in the unit.
If you’re so certain I’m wrong, please point me to the manufacturer of such a GPS-based tax meter device and I’ll take a look at it.
I don’t see the difference between metering auto useage and water useage
Because metering water usage does not meter HOW I use that water. If I have to pay more for water that I urinate in than for the water used on my lawn, and pay another rate for water that I drink, and have to attach a device to every water outlet in the home to monitor said usage, I’d consider that more than a trifle intrusive.
You’re hanging a lot on that word “usage”. There’s a difference between broadly measured “how much” usage and up-to-the-minute “where and when” usage.
You keep insisting that we can’t meter car useage without creating a record of when and where we travel. I don’t agree and we will just have to agree to disagree on that point.
You are the one insisting on the wide-scale deployment of a new technology and new taxing scheme. The burden falls on you to prove that it would not harm privacy. Show me.
– Bob R.
And if such a unit is to have any kind of auditing capability, then it must keep records and someone is going to want to access those records.
Just as your water meter keeps records of how much you used, not when and where you used it.
The GPS tax device will have to wirelessly transmit at least the very basic “amount owed” information to some kind of receiver.
Not necessarily. Why must it? Postage meters don’t send anything wirelessly. You pay for the postage, you use the postage. You buy more postage.
I can think of dozens of ways to defeat the unit and not pay a tax.
Can’t you theoretically find ways to do that with a postage meter as well? You can certainly drive a car without inspection, license and insurance and get away with it for awhile. But chances are at some point you will get caught.
There’s a difference between broadly measured “how much” usage and up-to-the-minute “where and when” usage.
All the gps meter needs to meter is “how much” useage. It uses place and time to determine “how much”. It keeps track of “how much” or it deducts the amount from a pre-paid charge. Or it transmits the amount to your bank for payment. Or you stick your bankcard in when the meter is low and put more on it the same way you pay for gas. Or you put coins in the meter in your car. There are dozens of ways that payment could be assured.
“Show me.”
I don’t believe I can. You are convinced it is impossible or at least should be impossible.
I don’t believe I can. You are convinced it is impossible or at least should be impossible.
Again, I respectfully challenge you to show me such a unit (just point me to a manufacturer’s web site) so that I may examine its specifications and modes of operation.
Is that so hard?
You seem convinced my concerns are completely unwarranted. But it is YOU who want to put such a device in my car. It is up to YOU to show me what the hell it is you are proposing _with_ _specifics_. Show me how it can be audited without giving my travel destinations to the government.
– Bob R.
“I respectfully challenge you to show me such a unit (just point me to a manufacturer’s web site) so that I may examine its specifications and modes of operation.”
As far as I know, no one has manufactured such a system. That is a far cry from saying it is impossible – which seems to be your argument.
“Show me how it can be audited without giving my travel destinations to the government.”
Audited by who and for what purpose? If you want to know where and when you drive, you can keep a record yourself. If you want to know how much it cost you, you can get that information from the meter.
“Audited by who and for what purpose?”
1. Audited by the government to prevent fraud.
2. Audited by me to prevent false billing.
I thought I had already made that pretty clear.
Yet again, the burden falls upon you to describe how the system would operate, because it is you who is proposing that drivers be forced to carry the meter.
– Bob R.
And one more thing, Ross:
I’m a pro-transit, pro smart-growth, pro urban-planning, progressive, technology-loving, politically involved person.
If I don’t want a GPS taxing system installed in my car, how are you going to convince the diverse mix of citizens of this state?
– Bob R.
“1. Audited by the government to prevent fraud.”
You make the meter tamper proof. No audit required.
“2. Audited by me to prevent false billing.”
If you think the meter is innaccurate, keep track of your travel and the charges. If its wrong, get the meter checked and fixed. This is not any different than how you “audit” your water meter.
“it is you who is proposing that drivers be forced to carry the meter.”
I am not sure how being “forced” to carry a meter is more oppressive than being forced to have a license plate on your vehicle or a drivers license in your pocket.
But actually, I wasn’t proposing it. I was pointed out its advantages and that the obvious concerns about privacy are resolvable. The larger problem, as I think your concerns indicate, are political.
Guys, with all due respect for your passion, I think you have both made your points clearly and you’re not going to convince each other. Let’s find some other things to talk about :-)
Comment deleted for violation of rule #3.
Comment deleted for violation of rule #3.
OK, guys, that last round crossed the line and has been removed. Let’s move on.
Chris –
There was nothing personal in my post. If you are going to delete posts for being directed at individuals you ought to delete your own as well.
Its your board, but referencing a rule and then deleting the post leaves you in the position of making your own personally directed commentary. You are tired of the discussion, OK. You made that clear.
Chris –
I’m fine with the deletion. A time-out was in order.
– Bob R.
Ross, to quote a portion of your comment that I removed: “I think your response demonstrates you stopped listening a long time ago.”
That doesn’t have anything to do with tolling technology, it’s strictly about another person in the discussion, which is NOT what this site is about.