Holland looks at how to charge motorists by the mile

A number of US transportation experts, including former Texas State Rep. Mike Krusee, who sits on the board of the Congress for New Urbanism, have said the nation will have to move toward a system that charges motorists according to how many miles they drive. The existing federal gasoline tax doesn't generate enough revenue to maintain the nation's roads, and the shortfall is getting worse as vehicles become more fuel-efficient.

Now The New York Times reports on a Dutch test of a system that's similar to what Krusee proposes. In Holland, some vehicles were equipped with devices that tabulated a charge for each car trip, "using a mileage-based formula that also takes account of a car’s fuel efficiency, the time of day and the route," according to the paper. Driving on busier thoroughfares would cost more than driving on less-traveled roads.

The program was only a test, and the idea of charging on the basis of mileage and other factors "was shelved when a new government came to power in 2010," The Times observes. But the idea is not going away. The experiment in Holland demonstrated that such a system is technically feasible, thanks to GPS and the Internet.

"Supporters of the meters contend that the charges are more equitable than current taxes like automobile purchase and registration fees, because they derive from actual use rather than mere ownership," the paper says. Such a system could make motorists more conscious of the costs of driving, and thus motivate people to drive less.