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Some policy makers say federal and state gas taxes soon won’t be enough to pay for construction and maintenance of Oregon’s roads.

But this month, the state will start exploring whether to try a mileage-based fee for new electric vehicles and perhaps determine whether the fee could be applied to all vehicles in the future.

With a mileage-based fee, which would replace a gas tax, drivers would be charged for every mile traveled within the state of Oregon. Vehicles would have GPS and mileage tracking devices installed. When the Oregon Department of Transportation tested such a fee in 2006, it found that the largest barrier to adoption was the tracking device itself; drivers had privacy concerns about aftermarket GPS devices being installed in their vehicles.

Also, the cost of installation of a mileage-tracking device is much more if not performed by a vehicle manufacturer, according to Tony Rufolo, a professor at Portland State University’s School of Urban Studies and Planning.

“Retrofitting all vehicles would be much too expensive of an approach to the mileage fee,” Rufolo said. “It has to be equipment installed by a manufacturer. Given that there will be a lot of untested technology in electric vehicles already, we could add this mileage fee device and do preliminary testing.”

This month, the Road User Fee Task Force that explored the mileage-based fee between 2001 and 2007 will explore whether to test mileage-based fee devices in electric vehicles, according to James Whitty, manager of ODOT’s Office of Innovative Partnerships and Alternative Funding.  The hope is that enough data can be collected from this initial wave of electric vehicles to demonstrate that such a system is economically viable for all vehicles.

“There has to be a resolution for what electric vehicle users will use to pay for roads,” Whitty said. “All major auto companies have a model and they won’t pay any gas tax. This could be an opportunity to apply the fee only to electric vehicles at first.”

Because electric vehicles are designed as rolling computers, they are well suited to track data, said John MacArthur, sustainable transportation program manager for the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium. Oregon has already built strong relationships with auto manufacturers Nissan and Toyota as it works to install electric vehicle charging stations across the state, and MacArthur thinks they would be receptive to such testing.

“There’s an opportunity to lead the nation by implementing this in real life with real cars,” MacArthur said. “Electric vehicles have the electronic smarts to get more information and there are hand raisers who want to get into these vehicles.”

However, Oregon State University economics professor and OTREC researcher B. Starr McMullen, who has studied potential social impacts of the mileage-based fee, said electric vehicle drivers may feel singled out by being the only road users required to pay a fee.

“People will argue that it’s unfair to assess a fee to an electric vehicle when you want to promote the use of these vehicles,” McMullen said. “But they are running on the same roads and causing the same wear and tear and congestion. The public in general will be very resistant to a mileage fee unless people can explain it’s not an additional tax and the difference in expense per year is miniscule compared to the gas tax.”

According to a report from the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, maintenance of the nation’s present transportation system will result in a $134 billion to $194 billion shortfall in gas tax funding between 2008 and 2035. In Oregon, ODOT in 2009 made a list of $15 billion worth of projects needed to address freight mobility, congestion and safety issues with the state’s highway system.

Whitty said a mileage-based fee system is on the horizon. The Road User Fee Task Force will have its first meeting on Oct. 28. Any recommendations that result will go to the state Legislature next year.

“Two national transportation commissions directed by Congress to develop a solution to road funding both recommended a mileage fee as a long-term solution,” Whitty said. “A lot of high-ranking people believe it’s the most viable option for replacing the gas tax, which most everyone agrees is failing.”