Chapter 8. Potential Future Research
Several external groups engage RUC practitioners, including recipients of STSFA grants. Organized discussions among these practitioners have suggested gaps in current research or knowledge about RUCs. These gaps are presented below. The FHWA does not endorse or verify the validity of the identified research gaps.
- Transition to RUC: A gap exists in identifying potential transition paths from a gas tax-based system to a mileage-based tax system and whether such transitions will involve a complete replacement of the gas tax or supplement to it. A related question is what happens when States have issued bonds against gas tax receipts.
- RUC implementation on a national level: Questions exist around per-mile rates to accomplish established policy goals and what Federal agencies might be involved in estimating those rates.
- Economic impact of RUC: It is unclear what impacts RUCsmight have on travel behavior.
- RUC and tolling: Questions remain regarding whether RUC could be a disruptor to the tolling industry depending upon how tolling technology evolves and payment mechanisms converge over the coming years and decades.
- Ongoing research on equity issues: As discussed in chapter 6, equity issues may need to be examined and analyzed in each geography to provide clarity on actual, potential, and perceived equity issues. While national studies would be instructive, they may not be persuasive for stakeholders at the local level.
- Best approaches to account for interstate travel: The issue of accurately accounting for interstate travel while meeting the needs of low/no technology usersis likely to persist in the future. While the issue may be of more significance in certain geographies like the Interstate (I) 95 corridor along the East Coast, interstate travel close to border jurisdictions is likely to continue into the foreseeable future.
- Scenario planning and analysis: Given that trends in vehicle technology and current and future travel behaviors are key influencers of potential RUC programs, agencies may benefit from evaluating different potential future scenarios. The convergence of electric vehicles, vehicle connectivity, and transportation usage patterns could be explored using the tools of scenario planning. This approach could consider emerging and potentially disruptive trends (e.g., autonomous vehicles and shared mobility) and allow States to hone in on RUC programs tailored to those potential future scenarios.
The RUC pilot partner States also identified the following needs:
- National information repository: The national repository would be a location where all the knowledge being created about RUC as part of the independent pilots is maintained and easily accessible.
- Communicating progress to public officials: States conducting pilots have identified the need to communicate progress in RUC explorations to elected officials.
- National level forums: Such forums would be beneficial to increase awareness about what is happening with the State pilots.
- Standardized terminology across the country: Terms varied across the multiple demonstration sites and approaches examined by different States—mileage-based user fees (MBUFs), DBUFs, RUC, VMT tax among, and others. Using differing terminology can impact the public perception and acceptance of the program and may not be ideal for interoperability between jurisdictions, particularly across State boundaries. Furthermore, in the Oregon program, the term “interoperability” is used to refer to both managing of operations across jurisdictional/State boundaries as well as the convergence of MBUF and other transportation pricing such as parking and transit.
