Fresh from the state who most embraces USA-PATRIOT ...
Driving While Intaxicated
by Will Wade
Wired.com
Oregon wants to know more about where people are driving -- a lot more. And it's looking at some high-tech ideas to generate tax revenue by billing drivers for every mile they travel on the state's roads.
The Oregon Department of Transportation is evaluating a scheme that uses the global positioning system to keep track of the distance every car travels in order to impose a road-use tax.
While the state sees the concept as the perfect replacement for its existing gasoline tax, privacy watchdogs are calling foul play over a plan that turns Big Brother into the ultimate backseat driver. And environmentalists are concerned that the plan reduces the incentive to purchase fuel-efficient vehicles.
"What we're trying to do is find a replacement for the gas tax," said Jim Whitty, administrator of the state's Road User Fee Task Force. The tax, currently 24 cents per gallon, generates about 70 percent of the total budget for building and maintaining roads in Oregon.
However, the tax rate hasn't changed since 1991, and the more fuel-efficient cars on the highways are sucking down far less fuel. The result, according to Whitty, is that tax income hasn't been able to keep pace with inflation, or with the need for additional road repairs due to increased traffic.
The traditional solution has simply been to raise the tax rate, but that approach is always unpopular with voters. Instead, the state created Whitty's task force in November 2001 with the mandate of studying a variety of alternative sources of income. The leading candidates use electronic boxes in cars to scrutinize driving habits.
"We concluded that the best, broad-based approach to replace the gas tax was a mileage fee," he said. "We want to be fair, and we determined we have the ability to electronically monitor the mileage that each driver travels within the state."
His group is considering two approaches. The first uses a GPS device in the car to determine where the vehicle goes, then calculates how many miles the vehicle covered. The second uses an electronic odometer system that logs the actual distance traveled.
In both cases, the boxes record and store the mileage figures. When a driver needs to fill up the tank, a built-in radio transmitter will zap the data to a reader alongside the pump, and the mileage charge will be added to the gasoline bill.
David Kim, an associate professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering at Oregon State University, is working with the task force to develop systems for both approaches. He expects to have working prototypes by next spring, and said at least 100 cars could be testing the devices by mid-2004.
Although the task force plans to test both the odometer device and the GPS-based system, Whitty said the GPS approach has the inside track. In part, this is because pure odometer readings can't guarantee that all the miles traveled are within Oregon, although Kim said RF beacons at the borders could toggle the boxes on and off as vehicles cross the state line.
A more important reason is that GPS, which can monitor exactly where a car goes within the state and at what times, eventually could be used to implement different tax rates, according to Whitty.
"We're also looking at variable pricing and congestion pricing," he said, "and we could even do different time-of-day rates." For example, the state could make it more expensive to drive downtown during rush hour than it would be to cover the same ground during a midnight munchie run when the streets are deserted.
While the task force is optimistic about the long-term potential of this digital tax plan, some privacy advocates are outraged by the idea of a machine that keeps tabs on individuals' driving habits.
"This technology has the potential to be incredibly invasive," said David Sobel, general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington, D.C., watchdog organization. "There are some very serious privacy and constitutional issues that arise when the government requires a technology that tracks where people go."
Whitty said there will be no privacy issues because the machines are being designed to store only the number of miles traveled, not the exact locations visited. "We're very confident we've resolved the privacy issue," he said.
But Sobel is skeptical that the machines will report only distances. He points out that the GPS-based machines likely will need to keep an internal record of where the car has been in case there are any errors on the mileage bill. "What if I get a tax bill for $5,000, and I know it's impossible?" he asked. "There will have to be some storage capability," he said, so drivers can prove that the bill is a mistake.
In addition, Sobel said there might well be some interest from law enforcement officials who want to determine where a suspect has been driving. "The question is whether a specific itinerary can be reconstructed after the fact," he said.
That's exactly what police officers in Washington state did in 1999, in one early use of GPS to electronically track a murder suspect. By hiding a GPS unit in William Jackson's pickup truck, the Spokane County sheriff's department was able to recreate his driving habits for several days, which led them directly to his daughter's remote gravesite.
"I find it hard to believe that a GPS (system) could not easily be turned into a device that can monitor where a car goes in real time," said Sobel. "And it's hard to believe that either within the device or in some remote database that information isn't being stored."
But Kim insists that the systems he's designing will record only mileage values, not actual locations. "We want to avoid the possibility of tracking as much as we can," he said. "One thing that's clear in our minds is that this can't store specific locations on a historical basis."
Kim said billing errors could be corrected with actual odometer readings instead of a digital log of locations visited. And if the police need to know where an individual has been? "We couldn't tell you," he said.
Chris Hagerbaumer, a program director at the Oregon Environmental Council, a conservation advocacy group in Portland, points out that moving away from a tax based on gas consumption eliminates an incentive to purchase fuel-efficient vehicles.
Hagerbaumer said Whitty's group may be addressing the state's income issues, but has failed to grasp the notion that tax systems also can be used to shape public attitudes and personal behavior.
"It's a complicated issue. We must raise the revenue over the long run, but without losing the good signal that a gas tax sends about purchasing more fuel-efficient vehicles," she said. "I think the real issue is more that they aren't setting the gas tax at the right rates."
Indeed, Oregon voters consistently have refused to approve any increases in the gas tax levels, which potentially makes the mileage rate a long-term end run around the will of the people.
Whitty said the test phase might last into 2006, and it could be many years before the mileage tax is actually in use. The long-term plan calls for auto manufacturers to install the systems in new cars. Until every car on the road has a mileage-tracking box, there would be two parallel tax systems in place -- the electronically measured mileage fee for new cars, and the traditional gas tax for older cars without the systems and visitors from other states.
However, Whitty noted one perk that would accompany the elimination of the gas tax. "The price of gas will come down," he said.
Driving While Intaxicated
by Will Wade
Wired.com
Oregon wants to know more about where people are driving -- a lot more. And it's looking at some high-tech ideas to generate tax revenue by billing drivers for every mile they travel on the state's roads.
The Oregon Department of Transportation is evaluating a scheme that uses the global positioning system to keep track of the distance every car travels in order to impose a road-use tax.
While the state sees the concept as the perfect replacement for its existing gasoline tax, privacy watchdogs are calling foul play over a plan that turns Big Brother into the ultimate backseat driver. And environmentalists are concerned that the plan reduces the incentive to purchase fuel-efficient vehicles.
"What we're trying to do is find a replacement for the gas tax," said Jim Whitty, administrator of the state's Road User Fee Task Force. The tax, currently 24 cents per gallon, generates about 70 percent of the total budget for building and maintaining roads in Oregon.
However, the tax rate hasn't changed since 1991, and the more fuel-efficient cars on the highways are sucking down far less fuel. The result, according to Whitty, is that tax income hasn't been able to keep pace with inflation, or with the need for additional road repairs due to increased traffic.
The traditional solution has simply been to raise the tax rate, but that approach is always unpopular with voters. Instead, the state created Whitty's task force in November 2001 with the mandate of studying a variety of alternative sources of income. The leading candidates use electronic boxes in cars to scrutinize driving habits.
"We concluded that the best, broad-based approach to replace the gas tax was a mileage fee," he said. "We want to be fair, and we determined we have the ability to electronically monitor the mileage that each driver travels within the state."
His group is considering two approaches. The first uses a GPS device in the car to determine where the vehicle goes, then calculates how many miles the vehicle covered. The second uses an electronic odometer system that logs the actual distance traveled.
In both cases, the boxes record and store the mileage figures. When a driver needs to fill up the tank, a built-in radio transmitter will zap the data to a reader alongside the pump, and the mileage charge will be added to the gasoline bill.
David Kim, an associate professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering at Oregon State University, is working with the task force to develop systems for both approaches. He expects to have working prototypes by next spring, and said at least 100 cars could be testing the devices by mid-2004.
Although the task force plans to test both the odometer device and the GPS-based system, Whitty said the GPS approach has the inside track. In part, this is because pure odometer readings can't guarantee that all the miles traveled are within Oregon, although Kim said RF beacons at the borders could toggle the boxes on and off as vehicles cross the state line.
A more important reason is that GPS, which can monitor exactly where a car goes within the state and at what times, eventually could be used to implement different tax rates, according to Whitty.
"We're also looking at variable pricing and congestion pricing," he said, "and we could even do different time-of-day rates." For example, the state could make it more expensive to drive downtown during rush hour than it would be to cover the same ground during a midnight munchie run when the streets are deserted.
While the task force is optimistic about the long-term potential of this digital tax plan, some privacy advocates are outraged by the idea of a machine that keeps tabs on individuals' driving habits.
"This technology has the potential to be incredibly invasive," said David Sobel, general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington, D.C., watchdog organization. "There are some very serious privacy and constitutional issues that arise when the government requires a technology that tracks where people go."
Whitty said there will be no privacy issues because the machines are being designed to store only the number of miles traveled, not the exact locations visited. "We're very confident we've resolved the privacy issue," he said.
But Sobel is skeptical that the machines will report only distances. He points out that the GPS-based machines likely will need to keep an internal record of where the car has been in case there are any errors on the mileage bill. "What if I get a tax bill for $5,000, and I know it's impossible?" he asked. "There will have to be some storage capability," he said, so drivers can prove that the bill is a mistake.
In addition, Sobel said there might well be some interest from law enforcement officials who want to determine where a suspect has been driving. "The question is whether a specific itinerary can be reconstructed after the fact," he said.
That's exactly what police officers in Washington state did in 1999, in one early use of GPS to electronically track a murder suspect. By hiding a GPS unit in William Jackson's pickup truck, the Spokane County sheriff's department was able to recreate his driving habits for several days, which led them directly to his daughter's remote gravesite.
"I find it hard to believe that a GPS (system) could not easily be turned into a device that can monitor where a car goes in real time," said Sobel. "And it's hard to believe that either within the device or in some remote database that information isn't being stored."
But Kim insists that the systems he's designing will record only mileage values, not actual locations. "We want to avoid the possibility of tracking as much as we can," he said. "One thing that's clear in our minds is that this can't store specific locations on a historical basis."
Kim said billing errors could be corrected with actual odometer readings instead of a digital log of locations visited. And if the police need to know where an individual has been? "We couldn't tell you," he said.
Chris Hagerbaumer, a program director at the Oregon Environmental Council, a conservation advocacy group in Portland, points out that moving away from a tax based on gas consumption eliminates an incentive to purchase fuel-efficient vehicles.
Hagerbaumer said Whitty's group may be addressing the state's income issues, but has failed to grasp the notion that tax systems also can be used to shape public attitudes and personal behavior.
"It's a complicated issue. We must raise the revenue over the long run, but without losing the good signal that a gas tax sends about purchasing more fuel-efficient vehicles," she said. "I think the real issue is more that they aren't setting the gas tax at the right rates."
Indeed, Oregon voters consistently have refused to approve any increases in the gas tax levels, which potentially makes the mileage rate a long-term end run around the will of the people.
Whitty said the test phase might last into 2006, and it could be many years before the mileage tax is actually in use. The long-term plan calls for auto manufacturers to install the systems in new cars. Until every car on the road has a mileage-tracking box, there would be two parallel tax systems in place -- the electronically measured mileage fee for new cars, and the traditional gas tax for older cars without the systems and visitors from other states.
However, Whitty noted one perk that would accompany the elimination of the gas tax. "The price of gas will come down," he said.
