Road Funds Part 6 - OReGO

We have been looking at way to fund the roads and bridges. This discussion was started because of  OReGO the program that Oregon is trying out to replace the gas tax. We have discussed OReGO here several times, most recently here.

I admit that I am not a fan of the program, but we have established our scoring criteria and so let's see how OReGO does.

First for non-fleet vehicles, there are two options. One of the options collects location information, the other does not. If you allow your location data to be collected, you can avoid paying the road tax when you are out of state or on private roadways. Both methods require a device to be plugged into your car's ODB II port, but privacy and out-of-state driving fees are both in our scoring criteria, so we'll need to score these two variants of OReGO separately.

When we wrap this series up, we'll discuss the implications of the program in more detail, but for now, let get the scores. Here are our 7 vectors:

Road fund taxes/fees should:
1) Have some correlation to road wear
2) Not be excessively regressive
3) Provide adequate funds for transportation maintenance needs
4) Be simple to pay
5) Allow for collection without invasion of personal privacy
6) Allow for out-of-state travel without paying in-state road fees
7) Tax drivers from out-of-state when they are using Oregon roads

OReGO GPS Option: 

1) Correlation to road wear - 80 points
This program correlates to road wear better than say property taxes, but it has no weight component, so it has a minor deduction. The deduction is small because in this weight range, the impact of vehicle weight is not a significant factor in road wear calculations.

2) Not A Regressive Tax - 100 points
This program is less regressive than the gas tax. It is also not as progressive as the property tax. To get full points in this category, the only requirement was to be "not be excessively regressive". This tax meets that bar.

3) Provide adequate funds - 100 points
This mileage tax isolates the tax rate from the fuel economy of the vehicle. The average fuel economy could increase every year and this method would still collect the needed funds.

4) Simple to pay - 0 points
To use OReGO, you have to setup a digital wallet and fund it with a credit card or bank account. So far these are just one-time setup items and not too difficult. But the hard part, the reason it scores a zero IMHO is because you have to track the tax that you pay at the pump. There is no way to wave a wand at the pump to tell them that you are in the mileage tax program. This means that you will have to keep track of this and provide the data to the OReGO program, then you will pay or receive a refund based on the OReGO tax vs the gas tax. Sounds complicated to me. If the gas tax were completely removed, and you only had to deal with the OReGO tax, this would score higher. However, currently, both are in place and since only 5000 vehicles out of the millions in the state in in OReGO, this item scores a zero.

5) Privacy - 10 points
There is a GPS enabled device in your car. The only reason that this scores any points is because they have made some effort to scrub the data before it is ever seen by the state. Here is what they say in the FAQ:

Commercial Account Managers collect location information to determine whether you are driving inside or outside Oregon, and for the purposes of administrating their value-added services. In the regular operation of the program, location information is not disclosed to ODOT. ODOT employees may review data for program audit purposes. All program-related data remains confidential based on Oregon Law and ODOT policy.

That sounds pretty clear to me that location data is collected and it can be reviewed for auditing or unusual purposes.

6) Out-of-state travel - 100 points
If you travel outside of Oregon, you will not have to pay the OReGO tax. Of course if you buy gas in another state, you'll be paying their gas tax.

7) Tax out-of-state drivers - 100 points or maybe 0 points later
If 100% of the vehicles in the state were on this program, then the gas could be eliminated. That would simplify paying (see #4), but if the gas tax was gone, that would mean that out-of-state drivers would not pay anything for the road wear they cause. So as it is today, with the gas tax remaining as the mileage tax is tested, it scores 100 points.

Adding it up, the OReGO GPS option scores 490 points.

OReGO No GPS Option 

The No GPS option is similar in several regards. Items 1-4 and 7 are the same as the GPS option.

1) Correlation to road wear - 80 points

2) Regressive Tax - 100 points

3) Provide adequate funds - 100 points

4) Simple to pay - 0 points

5) Privacy - 60 points
The No-GPS option scores better than the GPS option since your location data is not collected. Here is what the OReGO FAQ says:

The ODOT Account Manager (Sanef) does not collect location information, only miles driven and fuel consumed. All program data is destroyed on a set schedule per program policy.

So they still have a record of how many miles you have driven on any given day. This is far more information than they can collect from an odometer reading at the DMV.

6) Out-of-state travel - 0 points
Every miles that you drive under the No-GPS program is taxed. If you drive to another state and buy gas, you will be paying the OReGO tax and the other state's gas tax.

7) Tax out-of-state drivers - 100 points

Adding up the No GPS OReGO program scores 440 points.

Scores so far:
 raising the gas tax 520 points
 increasing property taxes 380 points
 increasing vehicle registration 380 points
 tire tax 350 points
 GPS OReGO 490 points
 No GPS OReGO 440 points

OReGO scores better than several of the options that we've explored but simply raising the gas tax is still the high score option.

Toll roads, congestion zones, and many other ideas are still to come.

Traveling Down the OReGO Trail

I Signed Up For OReGO!

I've been critical of the Oregon mileage tax plan called OReGO. While I understand the need for road funds, there are fundamental flaws in the system. I have a lot of questions that were not answered in their FAQ. One of these, for example, is how is the amount of gas tax that I pay tracked? If this program exempts me from the gas tax (replacing it with a mileage tax), how am I refunded the gas tax that'll still pay at the pump? To truly understand how the program works, I signed up.

So I am saying that the OReGO program is flawed and I think there is a better way, but I signed up for it anyway. This seems incongruent but this program is a first in the nation and it is being watched by many other states and the federal government. The lessons learned here could shape the future of national transportation infrastructure funding and I don't think the participant list should be populated exclusively with ideologues.

To be fair and allow people that might be more supportive and enthusiastic about the program have a chance, I waited two weeks after enrollment opened before trying to sign up. The program is limited to 5000 vehicles.

They were still accepting applicants. There are two vehicles that I own and drive: a Nissan Leaf electric car and a Honda Passport SUV. The Leaf is my daily commuter and the Passport is used for occasional camping, skiing, or hauling trips. I've previously discussed why I have these two vehicles in my "fleet" here and how, eventually, I'll consolidate into a PHEV SUV, if one ever comes to the US.

On the OReGO site, I selected signup and entered the data for my two vehicles. Surprisingly, the Leaf did not qualify for the program. Why not? It's a modern car with an OBD II port for their monitoring device. One of the major aspects of the OReGO initiative is to collect taxes from high mileage vehicles that are "not paying their fair share", so I was surprised to see the Leaf rejected. Here is the explanation they provided:

The SUV, on the other hand, had no problems and was accepted. The SUV gets about 17 MPG. With the state gas tax of 30¢ per gallon, that works out to ~1.8¢ of road funds per mile. The OReGO program will reduce this to 1.5¢ per mile. Then there is the overhead of paying for the monitoring device and the 3rd party fees for collecting (the device uses the cellular network), storing, and analysing the data. This overhead means that about 40% of the money collected goes just to funding the OReGO program itself. So now the "roads" are only getting 0.9¢ per mile of funds from the Passport. With the discount from 1.8¢ to 1.5¢ and the 40% overhead, that about a 50% reduction in funds from the SUV that go towards filling potholes or shoring up bridges.

So the electric car didn't qualify and the useful funds from the SUV are reduced by about half. I am not seeing how this program will improve our transportation funding shortfall, but I am curious how the experiment will play out.

The OReGO site has blogs by other participants that support the program. There are ODOT employees, local politicians, policy wonks and the like, but as far as I know, I am the only person signed up that is critical of the program. So don't expect to see my blog posts republished on the OReGO site anytime soon; but that's OK, I'm happy just writing here in my own little corner of cyberspace.

I'll keep you updated on my travels down the OReGO trail.

Traveling the OReGO Trail - Dead Battery & Phantom Trips

This is another entry in my journey with the Oregon vehicle mileage program called OReGO.

As I reported here, I have been having battery issues since signing up for OReGO. I have also been seeing phantom trips show up in the driving log. I joked that that after your battery dies, your car can become haunted.

Well, while not a haunting, it turns out that the phantom trips may actually be related to the battery issues. The OReGO website has a new feature that reports your vehicle's Voltage level. Here is what they show for mine currently:

Battery Voltage Reported on OReGO Website

Just before this feature went online, OReGO support called me and said that my battery Voltage was low and that might be the cause of my phantom trips. They recommended that I drive or idle the vehicle more often to keep the battery charged. Ironic that they would include idling the vehicle as a suggestion since you lose points in their gamification scoring system when you idle.

While, I agree that driving the vehicle more would keep the battery charged, I don't want to drive my gas hog vehicle any more than I need to and I am certainly not going to idle. That is just wasteful. So I did two things, I put a new battery in and put it on a genius battery trickle charger until it was full.

New battery on a charger

However, even after the battery was full, the phantom trips continued to occur. The OReGO site also continues to show that the battery Voltage level is low, even when the charger showed it as full and in the dash Voltage gauge shows ~13V.

So the saga of the dead battery and the midnight phantom on the Oregon trail will continue.

---

Traveling the OReGO Trail:
July 19, 2015 - Signing Up - Why?
July 23, 2015 - Saddle Up
July 27, 2015 - First Trip
July 29, 2015 - Jumpy GPS
July 31, 2015 - Jumpy GPS Response
August 20, 2015 - The Big Trip (well not that big)
September 25, 2015 - Dead Battery
October 6, 2015 - Dead Battery Response
October 15, 2015 - Phantom Midnight Driver

Traveling the OReGO Trail - Dead Battery & Phantom Trips (Pt2)

As reported earlier, the OReGO program is reporting that my battery Voltage is low. It was low, but I installed a new battery (and terminal connectors) and topped the Voltage off with a smart charger. Despite this, it still reports as low on the OReGO dashboard.

You can see in the two images below, that the Voltage is normal.

Battery Voltage Level w/ vehicle off

Battery Voltage Level w/ vehicle running

So above, you can see that the Voltage is normal. Here is what OReGO shows:

OReGO Dashboard Reports
The Battery Voltage As 10.49V

Today, the Azuga program manager for OReGO called me and explained that they found the bug that is causing this problem. In short, the bug is that the device sends a message when the Voltage is back above 10.5V. If the vehicle is garaged or in an area with poor cellular reception, this message could be lost. If this message is lost, then the Voltage level is not sampled again.

They have two fixes for this. First, the short term fix (coming soon). It will work this way: Every time the vehicle is started, any low Voltage state flags will be cleared and the system will return to normal Voltage reporting. Second, the long term fix (requires more code changes) works this way: battery Voltage levels will be reported along with other telemetry data. These messages require acknowledgement from the receiver or else they are retransmitted (like TCP traffic on the Internet).

So there you have it, the mystery of the low battery Voltage is solved (and will soon be fixed).

Now all that is left to figure out is the cause of the phantom trips. The Azuga program manager also mentioned that another vehicle in the program was experiencing this issue too. Ironically, the other vehicle is a Nissan LEAF (my daily driver).

Traveling the OReGO Trail - Jumpy GPS

OReGO is the new mileage tax program that is currently under test in Oregon. I signed up to experience the program and see how it works (and to share my experiences here).

Below is trip from the OReGO partner site that tracks miles driven.

GPS recorded trip with bad data 

In the image above, there are three circled show places that I did not drive during this trip. Google maps shows that the route that I took was 8.1 miles, while the OReGO site has this trip listed as 8.3 miles.

It's not surprising that the GPSr unit would not get a great signal. If you've ever done any geocaching then you know that the coordinates can move around with even minor cover obstructions. The OReGO GPSr is under a dash, surrounded by electronics, wrapped in a steel and glass shell, all while zooming down the street. It's amazing that it works as well as it does.

GPSr unit that plugs into the OBD II port

The OReGO program is going to need to be improved to compensate for GPSr errors (tunnels, tree cover, etc.). The unit could read the odometer and vehicle speed and use this data as well as the GPS coordinates to more accurately measure the distance traveled. In the trip above for example, the minor errors are not significant, but the third and largest error has me getting on the freeway, taking an exit, getting back on the freeway and zipping back, all in the length of time that I traveled the on a freeway overpass. To do this in such a short period of time, I would have been traveling at hundreds of miles per hour. That is not possible on highway 26 at any time of day.

In this case, the additional money charged for the jumping GPS didn't matter. Despite the additional mileage, they seemed to get the fuel consumption right. So that just meant that I received a slightly smaller refund of my gas tax than I otherwise would have.

One reason to run a pilot program like this is to work out the bugs. I hope they are looking for these minor moments of lightspeed in the data so they can correct for them or find out who has discovered the next great interstellar travel solution.

Traveling the OReGO Trail - Jumpy GPS Response

I recently posted a blog entry where I showed that the route shown by the OReGO program is not 100% accurate. 

Bad route data

I asked the OReGO administrators about this and here is their response:

Dear Patrick,

Thank you for contacting Azuga OReGO Customer Care with your concerns. We take them seriously. I'll explain how the route is plotted but want to first assure you that actual mileage readings are provided by the device from the vehicle, not generated from the plotted route.

The device reads GPS Latitude and Longitude values every 30 seconds from the device. The dark blue points on the route denote the GPS point. These lat/long values are sent to Google for reverse geo-coding which is resolved to an address. The route shown on the map is the most probable one taken by the vehicle as determined using the values and mapping software.

Occasionally, a turn or circle that does not belong on your trip is plotted due to GPS drift. These minor anomalies appear on your trip history, but are not used to determine your mileage or Road Usage Charge (RUC). Mileage is measured off of the Vehicle Speed Sensor (VSS) which is the same accurate reading that is sent to your vehicle's odometer.

Again, we thank you for your concern on accuracy as it is a major focus for Azuga. We appreciate you participating in this pioneering road and infrastructure maintenance program and wish you happy driving.

Thank you,
Azuga OReGO Customer Care

There you have it. The GPS location data is not used to determine the trip distance. The route does not need to be perfect for their trip calculations. The GPS location is only needed to determine if you are in the state and on public roads.

I'm still not sure why Google says it was 8.1 miles door to door while OReGO says that it was an 8.3 mile drive. I'll check the odometer next time I make that drive.

Traveling the OReGO Trail - Dead Battery

<click, click, nothing>
<click, click, nothing>

Dead battery. More on that soon. 

It has been awhile since I wrote about my OReGO adventure. That is because the SUV with the monitoring device has been parked. As I mentioned in my first OReGO trail article here, I don't drive the SUV all that often; most of the time it sits unused. The SUV has been unused since the big trip.

Well, today I went out to try to move the SUV to load it for our final camping trip of the year.

Fall colors in Chiloquin, Oregon. Photo by Vikas Sharma.

Trying to start the SUV:
<click, click, nothing>
<click, click, nothing>

The SUV had a dead battery. The monitoring device in the car for OReGO reports back at least every 24 hours, even when the vehicle is not being driven. So standing in the rain this morning, we tried to jump start it with no luck. So I pulled the battery out and put it on a charger in my garage. Hopefully it will charge up in time for the camping trip, if not I'll be dropping $100 for a new battery tomorrow.

There were signs that there might be trouble. Back on September 7th, I received the below message from OReGO.

I assumed this notice was because I had not driven the vehicle for 4 weeks. Apparently, I received this notice because the vehicle battery was dieing and the monitoring device was unable to operate.

The notice went on to say:

I could not find anything in the FAQ about this. There is nothing about "Null Mileage Days" or "Dead Battery" there. I'll send them an email and see what they say. It is ironic that the monitoring device is the likely cause of the dead battery and now I might be charged additionally fees because of the dead battery.

After this camping trip, the SUV will again sit unused until we have a snow day or head up to the mountain to ski (likely in February). So I need some way for the monitoring device to not kill my battery again. Other than leaving a trickle charger on the battery, I'm not sure how I prevent this. I normally park the SUV in the street and it would not be easy to keep a trickle charger on it there.

Since this is a voluntary program, I might have to opt out if they insist on charging me for excessive null days. I'll let you know how they respond to these concerns. If they want to roll this program out to thousands of people, they'll need answers to these real life corner cases.

Traveling the OReGO Trail - Saddle Up!

As I mentioned here, I signed up for OReGO.

Part of the program a device plugs into the vehicle's OBD II port to track the vehicle and report the mileage. The device arrived recently.

Tracking unit for the OReGO millage tax program

I popped the GPSr device into the vehicle and followed the Quick Start instructions. The unit registered and I received an email saying that my vehicle was now online with OReGO. 

This email was quickly followed by another stating that my cash balance was low ($0). The Azuga site wants you to pre-fund your account and then allow them to withdraw funds as you drive. This is not how I pay my phone bill, but it is sort of how I was paying the gas tax since I paid the tax when filling up and before burning the gas. So I put $5 (the minimum amount) in the account. I figured I'd start small and see how it goes.

<sidebar>

This account doesn't pay any interest, so there is no reason to have more than the minimum amount in there. If OReGO grows, as many in the transportation department would like to see, then millions of drivers would be funding these accounts. Even with small balances, Azure would be managing millions of dollars and paying no interest. hmmm. Also, is it FDIC insured? 

</sidebar>

As soon as I have my first trip logged, I'll be sure to share it.

Traveling the OReGO Trail - Big Trip

We packed up the pop-up camper and the SUV and we hit the road for a long weekend at the lake in the hot, high desert of central Oregon. This was our first long trip since we joined the OReGO program and I was curious to see how our trip would be logged.

Pulling the camper, packed with gear, and headed over the Cascades, the gas mileage was expected to be lower than usual. I wondered if the unit plugged into the ODBII port would correctly measure this change in fuel use.

150 Mile trip tracked by OReGO

The jumpy GPS issue that I discussed previously, was in effect again. This time it even had me doing a loop around all of downtown Portland:

Inaccurate tracking results in silly routes that were not taken

Here is the data that OReGO logged for the trip there:
169.1 miles
11.23 gallons
$2.54 mileage fee
$3.37 fuel tax refund

So with the refund and fees, I was refunded 83¢ for this drive.

The MPG is not explicitly listed on the OReGO but they have miles and gallons, so it is not hard to compute. On this trip we averaged 15 MPG. This is lower than the 17 or 18 MPG that the SUV usually gets. So the unit seems to have correctly comprehended the change in MPG from pulling the camper.

Traveling the OReGO Trail - Dead Battery Response

I reported here that I was having some trouble with my car battery since joining the OReGO program. To be fair, this is an old vehicle, I don't drive it much, and the failure could have nothing to do with the hardware they added to my car to track it.

However, OReGO did add insult to my injury. After all the hassle of dealing with a vehicle that wouldn't start, paying $105 for a new starter battery, I then received an email from OReGO saying that my device had not been reporting and that I could be charged for "Null Mileage Days".

I had no idea what "null days" were or that the fee would be. So I sent Azuga (the company that is administrating the program for ODOT) an emails asking 2 questions:

1. What are "Null Mileage Days" and how much is the charge?
2. Could their device cause my battery to drain and, if so, how could I prevent it?

A weeks went by and Azuga didn't respond. I sent a follow up email, three days go by, still no response. I emailed ODOT and told them the story and said that Azuga was not responding. To their credit, ODOT responded on the same day and called Azuga and told them to call me.

Without posting the entire email from ODOT, here is a summary of what they said:

The Azuga system can store several days worth of data to allow for cases such as underground parking, where it may not get a signal. Even when you don't drive, the device checks in periodically. When the device has not checked in for 10 days, it is assumed that the device is no longer plugged in, or in a "non-reporting state". When this occurs, the owner will be charged a flat rate for these “null mileage days”. The rate is determined by averaging the driving range of the vehicles previous 60 days and multiplying that distance by the road usage fee amount of 1.5 cents.  

Here is the rub with this statement, normally, the road usage fee is applied and the amount of the gas tax is refunded. They didn't mention anything about refunding the gas tax. That is a follow up question.

The ODOT reply went on to make more points. First the null mileage email that I received, might have been in error. Azuga sent out several false null mileage emails in September. They still have glitches to work out. Second, they said that if I am not going to be driving for 30+ days, I could call Azuga and temporarily opt out. However, I don't know when I'll be driving the vehicle next. The camper is stored away for the year and it's at least 2 months until ski season, so it will likely sit, but maybe I'll need to pick up some drywall or something that won't fit in one of the cars.

The last point from ODOT was that this the the first report that they have heard about a dead 12V battery, but the program has only been running for 3 months. They don't think the tracking system would be the cause since it is a small load, but they would like to follow up more on that topic after checking with some of the more technical people involved. Maybe I should pull out my multi-meter and make a few measurements.

I'll keep you updated as this progresses.

-----------------------------------------

Traveling the OReGO Trail:
July 19, 2015 - Signing Up - Why?
July 23, 2015 - Saddle Up (unbox and plug in)
July 27, 2015 - First Trip
July 29, 2015 - Jumpy GPS
July 31, 2015 - Jumpy GPS Response
August 20, 2015 - The Big Trip (well not that big)
September 25, 2015 - Dead Battery

Traveling The OReGO Trail - First Trip

As mentioned in an earlier posts, I've signed up for the OReGO program to see firsthand how the program works. The vehicle I signed up is a 17MPG SUV that I don't drive much.

My first trip is now logged in the system. Ironically, this trip included a stop at the gas station to fill up the tank.

Here is the trip data from the OReGO site:

Depending on your screen size this image may be very hard to read, but I'll walk you through it. The trip was 4.1 miles. They computed that it used 0.33 gallons of gas. The state gas tax is 30¢ per gallon, that mean I paid 10¢ in fuel tax for that 1/3rd of a gallon. The OReGO road tax is 1.5¢ per mile, so 4.1 miles costs 6¢. My 10¢ of gas tax is replaced with 6¢ of mileage tax; this means I get a refund of 4¢.

So, when I drive around in my gas guzzling SUV, my OReGO account will be accruing money. How do I withdraw funds? When this experiment is over (likely when I trade-in this SUV), I'll withdraw the funds and make a donation to my local EV club.

This answered one of my questions about the program. "How do they know how much gas tax I paid?" They do not track (or require reporting) of the gas tax payments. Instead, they compute the gas tax based on fuel use monitoring. They assume fuel used in the state, was purchased in the state. What if I fueled up in Vancouver, WA? I would be getting refunded for a tax I didn't pay and then a discount refund payment on top of that. Would that be tax fraud or evasion? I hope not.

OReGO Has No Wings

Willamette Week and Fox News don't agree on much. The Oregon Department of Transportation has managed to create something that the liberal newspaper and the conservative news channel agree upon. They both hate the new vehicle mileage tax that started in Oregon on July 1st.

The program is called OReGO and it is open to 5000 volunteers. The participating vehicles are fitted with a GPS unit that plugs into the car's diagnostic port. Drivers are charged 1.5 cents per mile on Oregon roads and they are refunded any gas tax they pay at the pump. 

So what is it that has both the left wing and the right wing upset with this program? 

Let's start with the left: OReGO taxes all vehicles at 1.5 cents per mile. This means that Hummers pay the same per mile as a Prius. With gas tax, there was an incentive to drive a fuel efficient vehicle. This flat rate removes the state tax incentive to have a smaller carbon footprint. 

Moving to the right: OReGO puts a GPS tracker in your car. Everywhere you go can tracked. The program is designed to have this information scrubbed by a 3rd party before it is seen by the state, but the invasion of privacy is big government stepping far over the line into our personal lives.  

There are more complaints on both sides, but these are the biggest two. This leaves the program vastly without support from the left wing or the right wing.

Without support from either political wing, OReGO
is like a plane with no wings. it's not going to fly  

EVs Soon Welcome to Oregon Mileage Tax

One of my fellow EV drivers received an invitation to the Oregon Mileage Tax program. When he explained that the only vehicle that he owned was an electric Nissan Leaf, here is the response from the OReGO program:

It is true that we cannot just yet enroll a Leaf in OReGO, but we hope to be able to do that very soon! Our account managers are working very fast on the technology that will allow EVs to participate, particularly your Leaf. Because, you are right! It would be decidedly “un-Oregonian” not to have EVs in this innovative program. Please stay with us a little longer; we hope to have an announcement soon opening up OReGO to one or more electric vehicle models. When that happens, you could be one of the first to join! Thanks very much for your interest. We appreciate it.

Michelle D. Godfrey
Public Information Officer for
Oregon’s Road Usage Charge Program
Oregon Department of Transportation

Road Funds - Is there a perfect solution? Part 1

Construction of bridges and roadways, maintenance of bridges and roadways: paying for our transportation infrastructure is not cheap.

Transportation infrastructure is deteriorating nationwide. States are finding it difficult to maintain their roads and bridges and to fund new construction projects. One of the primary sources of funding for infrastructure is a gas tax. This source, however, is drying up.

A one-two punch has hit the gas tax. One, cars are being driven fewer miles. Oregon, for example hit peak driving in 2004. Each year since then has seen fewer miles on the state's roads. Millennials just don't drive as much as previous generations. They are digital natives and are happy to work at the corner coffee shop rather than an office 20 miles from their home. The second punch is that vehicles are becoming more fuel efficient. Hybrid and plug-in vehicles are steadily increasing the MPG rating of new cars.

Even with the reduction in miles driven, many of the road maintenance costs continue. So how should we fund our roads?

There are always behavioral elements associated with a taxes and fees that must be considered. In a simple model, governments tax the things they want to discourage and have incentives for the things they'd like to see proliferate. For our road funding thought experiment, I propose that any potential solution would be measured with the following criteria:

Road fund taxes/fees should:
1) Have some correlation to road wear
2) Not be excessively regressive
3) Provide adequate funds for transportation maintenance needs
4) Be simple to pay
5) Allow for collection without invasion of personal privacy
6) Allow for out-of-state travel without paying in-state road fees
7) Tax drivers from out-of-state when they are using Oregon roads

Constructing a solution to meet all of these goals will not simple. What do you think of these are the success criteria? People often disagree about things because they have different goals. If we have agreement on the goals, we're more likely to have agreement on the solution(s).

You might have noticed that there is no item in the above list for air pollution or CO2. These are important, but this is an issue for road funding. If the externalities of fossil fuel use is to be addressed (and I think they should), that would be independent from road funds. So something such as a carbon tax is outside of the scope of the road funding discussion.

In the next few posts let's look at a few proposed solutions and see how they rate against these criteria.

	Potential Funding Method
Part 2	Raising the gas tax
Part 3	Increasing property taxes
Part 4	Increasing vehicle registration
Part 5	Tire tax
Part 6a	GPS OReGO
Part 6b	No GPS OReGO

Traveling the OReGO Trail - Phantom Midnight Driver

Just in time for Halloween, my car has apparently become haunted. I guess that can happen after your battery dies, LOL. So why do I say that my car is haunted? As you know, I have a state issued tracking devices in my vehicle. This means that all the trips my car makes are tracked and there are some trips in that log that I did not take.

Here is a recent log entry from October 1st:

As you can see, just after midnight, the vehicle started to move. Only, I wasn't driving it. <scary> These short phantom trips continued until 4PM the next day. On other days these phantom trips have happened at 3 to 4 AM.

Adding up all these up, it would be $0.27 in charges. However, with the fuel tax rebate that is part of the program, these will not amount to much. But what if I were a fleet manager? I'd wonder why people were taking my vehicles up and down the street in the middle of the night and I had to pay fees for it.

I wonder if this is just another case of jumpy GPS or maybe I have something like a loose battery terminal cable and it is related to the dead battery issue that I had.

On the plus side, this did earn me a badge for driving more than 7 hours in a day #gamification

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Traveling the OReGO Trail:
July 19, 2015 - Signing Up - Why?
July 23, 2015 - Saddle Up
July 27, 2015 - First Trip
July 29, 2015 - Jumpy GPS
July 31, 2015 - Jumpy GPS Response
August 20, 2015 - The Big Trip (well not that big)
September 25, 2015 - Dead Battery
October 6, 2015 - Dead Battery Response

My OReGO Trail Adventure

The story of my experience in the Oregon vehicle mileage tax experiment.

Traveling the OReGO Trail:
July 19, 2015 - Signing Up - Why?
July 23, 2015 - Saddle Up
July 27, 2015 - First Trip
July 29, 2015 - Jumpy GPS
July 31, 2015 - Jumpy GPS Response
August 20, 2015 - The Big Trip (well not that big)
September 25, 2015 - Dead Battery
October 6, 2015 - Dead Battery Response
October 15, 2015 - Phantom Midnight Driver

Road Funds Part 4 - Vehicle Registration

Welcome to part four of our road funding exploration. Oregon has recently launched OReGO, a vehicle mileage tax. While it is easy to criticize any government policy (especially a tax), the hard part is coming up with a viable way to fund our mutual goals, so we'll look at several suggested funding methods (as well as a few of our own) and score them to see how they stack up.

In this post, we'll look at the idea raising the vehicle registration fees.

Oregon's first vehicle registration law was enacted in 1905. It was a one-time only fee of $3 and was dedicated to road construction. Today, a regular vehicle title is $77 per year (you have to pay for 2 years at a time) and, if your car requires smog checking, is usually rolled in with a DEQ fee. Vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) over 26,000 pounds pay $90 per year.

Today, most people drive about 12,000 miles per year. Assuming an average fuel efficiency of 23 MPG, that means the average annual gas tax payment is ~$156. If the gas tax were to be completely replaced with a registration fee, we'd have to pay an additional $312 registration fee every two years. That would bring the total up to $466.

To assess each tax or fee idea, we'll walk through each item on the list and score it from 0 to 100. Let's see how an increased registration fee scores against the criteria we defined in part 1:

Road fund taxes/fees should:
1) Have some correlation to road wear
2) Not be excessively regressive
3) Provide adequate funds for transportation maintenance needs
4) Be simple to pay
5) Allow for collection without invasion of personal privacy
6) Allow for out-of-state travel without paying in-state road fees
7) Tax drivers from out-of-state when they are using Oregon roads


1) Correlation to road wear - 0 points
Registration has nothing to do with miles driven

2) Regressive Tax - 30 points
This fee have no coorelation to income or vehicle cost. It is generally regressive. The only reason it earns any points here is that lower income households don't tend to have Jay Leno garages with a card catalog of vehicles to select from.

3) Provide adequate funds - 100 points
The registration value could be selected to meet the road fund needs. In down economic years, the number of miles travels varies more than the number of registered vehicles.

4) Simple to pay - 100 points
Registration fees are already paid today. No new infrastructure is needed to collect these funds.

5) Privacy - 100 points
The state would not need to collect in additional information about you for this fee.

6) Out-of-state travel - 50 points
This fee is not associated to miles traveled, so it does not matter where you drive.

7) Tax out-of-state drivers - 0 points
Out of state drivers would not register their cars here and if there is no gas tax, then no fees would be collected from out-of-state drivers.

Adding it up, raising the registration fee scores 380 points. For reference, raising the gas tax scored 520 points and increasing property taxes scored the same 380 points. We still have several more funding methods to consider.