Get paid to drive less?
That’s what happened to volunteers of the “Traffic Choices” study sponsored by the Puget Sound
Regional Council. Each one was given “endowment accounts” of “virtual cash” which was charged every time they used certain highways or were on the road during rush hour. The information was transmitted by monitoring devices on their vehicle’s dashboard. At the end of the experiment (February, 2006), any remaining virtual cash was exchanged for the real thing.
Note that the amount of virtual cash at the beginning of the experiment was different for each volunteer as it was based on driving habits.
The goal of the experiment was to see how financial incentives and disincentives, such as toll roads, would have on people's driving habits. The data gathered so far among the volunteers has fluctuated wildly. Some couldn’t change their driving habits due to their lifestyle (e.g., driving children to school in the morning.) Others, like Bill Tan, reduced his driving to the point that the study manager contacted him to see if the monitoring device had broken.
Results of the study will be available later in 2006.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Zverg 5:58PM (1/01/2006)
Most of the time when I go out for a drive it is purely for pleasure. I could ride my bike (climate permitting), but the zoom-zoom spirit lives within me and my car begs to be driven. An incentive to drive less wouldn't change my pleasure driving habits at all, I'll do that at any cost. What it would change is how I get to and from school. I would ride my bike for the 2 months out of the year that I'm there and the weather is suitable.
I don't deal with any rush hour traffic where I am (CT and Rochester, NY) but I still think it's a really cool idea and it would get people to carpool more because there would be an actual incentive other than funneling them into carpool lanes that always get blocked by some jackass going 10 under the limit. :D
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Richard 10:01PM (1/01/2006)
This is how bureaucrats spend your gas tax money. Instead of using it to build roads and maintain bridges, they spend it on anti-car boondoggles like this.
Make no mistake, this little experiment is designed for to turn into a pay-per-mile tax system so that your triple taxed on your automobile. (Your salary gets taxed, you get taxed when you spend your money on gas, then you get taxed again for each mile you drive.)
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Steve B. 12:49PM (1/02/2006)
I wasn't aware that income tax was a tax on your automobile. By that logic, you are taxed many more times than that.
1. Income tax
2. State income tax (depending on state)
3. Sales tax on new vehicle purchase
4. Vehicle registration.
5. Property tax (depending on state)
6. Sales tax on gasoline (depending on state)
7. Gas tax on gasoline (federal)
8. State gas tax (depending on state)
You are essentially taxed by the mile through gasoline taxes. Any by-the-mile scheme in place of a by the gallon setup would essentially eliminate the extra incentive to save gas.
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Kevin Buchanan 11:18AM (1/03/2006)
It seems to me that all these schemes to punish pocketbooks for drivers driving in rush hour forget one thing - it's rush hour because *we all need to be somewhere at that time.* Work, school, etc. That's just the time these things happen. It's not like people all just love to get on the roads and floor their cars in park to spew gasses out the tailpipe for fun at 7:00 AM - they're all on the road at 7:00 AM because they have to get to work. Not much getting around that, is there?
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