Project Summary
Evaluating the equity implications of emerging transportation revenue sources, like road user charges, requires a sound basis of comparison with established revenue sources, like fuel, sales, and property taxes. The fairness of these various revenue sources is a function of both their “incidence” (who pays them, how much, and under what circumstances) and use (where, to what, and on whose behalf these revenues are expended). In this study, the research team proposes to review and synthesize research on both transportation tax incidence and transportation expenditure equity to develop an evaluation framework that policymakers and government analysts can use to systematically evaluate the equity implications of an array of established and emerging transportation finance instruments in a comparative framework. This research will also consider how the effects of these various instruments have changed in recent years, and will be likely to do so in the future given changes in both propulsion technologies and information and communications technologies.
