Equity evaluation of vehicle miles traveled fees in Texas.

PDFTech ReportSWUTC/12/161105-110727Fuel taxesVehicle miles of travelEquity (Finance)EvaluationHighway user taxationTexasSouthwest Region University Transportation Center (U.S.)Burris, MarkLarsen, LisaTexas Transportation InstituteNTL-ECONOMICS AND FINANCE-ECONOMICS AND FINANCEUS Transportation CollectionThe Texas state gas tax has been 20.0 cents per gallon since 1991, and the federal gas tax has been 18.4cents per gallon since 1993. The gas tax is not only stagnant, but depreciating in value due to inflation.One proposed alternative to the gas tax is the creation of a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) fee; with equitybeing a crucial issue to consider.This research used 2009 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) Texas data to consider the equityimpacts surrounding four VMT fee scenarios. Data were filtered and weighted to reflect resultsrepresentative of Texas vehicle-owning households in 2008. Each scenario was run both statically anddynamically under the assumption that the VMT fee would replace the state gas tax. Results indicate thatall of the VMT fee scenarios are essentially as equally vertically equitable as the current state gas taxsystem