Abstract
Many states in the United States rely on fuel taxes to maintain roads. In 2005 eighty percent of Oregon's road revenues depended either directly or indirectly on fuel taxes. However, Oregon has seen this flow of revenue slowly decline during the past 30 years. It is envisioned that further improvement of automobile fuel efficiency will have an even more dramatic effect on fuel tax revenues in the near future. In 2001 the Oregon Legislative Assembly passed House Bill 3946 mandating the Oregon Department of Transportation to examine alternatives to the current system of taxing highway use through fuel taxes. Since 2003 Oregon State University, in collaboration with the Oregon Department of Transportation and the Road User Fee Task Force, has investigated a vehicle miles traveled (VMT)-based alternative to the fuel tax. The design, development, and testing of the VMT-based solution was broken down into several phases, the last of which required the execution of a pilot test from June 19, 2006, to March 25, 2007, involving approximately 250 volunteer drivers. The main objectives of this paper are to present the technology performance results of the VMT-based solution gathered during the pilot test and to share the lessons learned from its subjective evaluation.
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