Highway User Fees

The nation's deteriorating roads and highways impose billions of dollars in additional costs to their users each year. In 1991, U.S. motorists and truck drivers spent an estimated $17.4 billion on wasted fuel, added tire wear, and extra vehicle repairs as a result of driving on roads in poor condition. To build and maintain the nation's highway system, the federal government collects user fees, mainly in the form of fuel taxes. Concerns have arisen, however, that fuel taxes, along with other federal user fees, may not be the fairest way to allocate highway costs because such taxes bear no relation to the amount of road damage caused by different vehicles. Highway wear increases exponentially with the weight of a vehicle's axle load, and past studies have suggested that heavy trucks, in particular, may not be paying their fair share of highway costs. This report (1) summarizes the rationale for and the arguments against assessing fees according to the wear that a driver causes to highways, (2) evaluates the recent experiences of states that assess or have rescinded wear-based fees, and (3) identifies potential approaches that might be used to overcome the obstacles to implementing such fees.

GAO found that: (1) proponents of wear-based fees contend that such fees would more accurately charge heavy trucks for the wear they cause and, in the long run, provide truck operators with an incentive to reduce pavement wear; (2) opponents of wear-based fees argue that they are unnecessary, costly to administer and enforce, and easy to evade; (3) since 1989, 5 states have rescinded their wear-based fees due to administrative costs, evasion, and legal challenges; (4) 6 states continue to use wear-based fees, emphasizing that they increase equity and efficiency; (5) high administrative costs and evasion rates can be minimized with the use of efficient new highway system technologies; and (6) Federal Highway Administration (FHwA) officials emphasize that the implementation of a national weight-distance user fee is currently feasible and would allow greater precision in charging trucks on a weight-per-axle basis.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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