University of Iowa Public Policy Center’s
Road User Study
Background Information
History
• The Highway Trust Fund supports transportation infrastructure and receives a majority
of its money from the motor fuel tax, which is imposed on every gallon of gasoline
purchased nationwide.
• Over the past ten years, the motor fuel tax has increasingly failed to generate
sufficient funds to repair damaged roads and bridges, fill potholes, and maintain
the safe and efficient operation of our highway system. Improved fuel efficiency
of the nation’s vehicle fleet is the main reason.
• The University of Iowa Public Policy Center has been awarded a federal
grant to study a new approach to financing the nation’s roadways. The system, which
uses on-board computers, may one day replace the gas tax.
About the Study
• Over the next year, the Public Policy Center will conduct a field
test of the system in six cities across the U.S., including Chicago, IL; Billings, MT; Albuquerque, NM; Wichita, KS; Miami, FL and Portland, ME.
• The Iowa study tests an approach that will allow drivers to pay only for the actual
number of miles they travel. A small computer will be installed in participants’
vehicles to store a record of these miles. The total amount owed will then be uploaded
to a central database, much like what is used by credit card companies, which will
then distribute funds to the states, counties or cities in which the travel took
place.
• The privacy of motorists’ participating in the study will be strictly protected
by providing an identification number to each participant, rather than using personal
information and at the end of the study all documents containing personal information
of the participant will be destroyed.
• It is likely that acceptability of the new
approach will depend to a large extent on perceptions regarding privacy. In the
maximum-privacy configuration, it is significant that the only figure that can be
tied to a particular vehicle is a single dollar amount for total user charges that
are due. When data are transferred from the vehicle to the network operating center,
these data are encrypted to assure anonymity. It is not necessary to know which
vehicle generated a particular sum of user charge for each jurisdiction; all that
is required is the amount to be apportioned to each of the jurisdictions. This approach
maximizes user privacy and ensures a fair distribution of revenue.
• There remains an issue of audit-ability, however. The OBC can be configured to
provide the user with a detailed record of charges. While this record would enable
the vehicle’s owner to understand the exact basis for the user charges in billing
statements, it is possible that the detailed record could be subpoenaed in criminal
or civil cases involving the owner of a vehicle. The OBC can be configured to allow
the owner to choose between privacy maximization versus having substantiation of
user charges. Because the trade-off between privacy protection and audit-ability
is one of the key issues we are addressing in this national evaluation study, we
will enable participants to experience each method during the course of the field-testing.
• Prescreened and selected participants of the study will have the on-board computer
temporarily installed in their vehicles. This installation will not in any way damage
the vehicle. The computer will store a record of charges accrued from road use.
Research Goals
1. Appropriateness of the technology. Test the reliability, security, flexibility,
user-friendliness and cost-effectiveness of on-board computers (GPS and GIS);
2. User acceptability. Evaluate driver acceptance of such a system; and
3. Find out why vehicle operators accept or reject the system, what they like and
what they don’t.
Media Contact
Lori Jarmon
(319)-335-6809
lori-jarmon@uiowa.edu