Transportation funding is critical to maintaining the assets that provide mobility for the movement of Georgia's people and goods. Currently, most of Georgia's transportation revenue is provided by the motor fuel tax. Inflation and recent increases in fuel economy have decreased fuel tax revenue in Georgia and weakened the Georgia Department of Transportation's (GDOT)'s ability to maintain and expand its transportation network. This thesis synthesizes factors from literature that affect motor fuel tax revenue. These include demographic, economic, technological, and environmental forces that influence travel behavior and vehicle fuel economy. A model was then created that incorporated these factors to model GDOT's 2009 fuel tax revenue and then project revenue in 2020 and 2030. The model uses an input/output structure that segments the fleet into personal, freight, and transit categories. User inputs, historical data, and projections are linked via relationships and feedback loops to project travel and fuel tax revenue forward. Because a near-infinite number of scenarios exist, conservative and aggressive scenarios were created for 2020 and 2030 scenarios that output revenue on an absolute, per-mile, and per-capita basis for comparison with more recent revenues. The model outputs predict marginal declines in revenue by 2020 and significant declines by 2030. In response to these declines, the thesis evaluates methods of increasing transportation revenue. These methods include increasing the fuel tax, incorporating a VMT-fee, and widespread tolling measures. After evaluation, a policy recommendation is provided for how to best implement revenue strategies.

Transportation finance has been historically dominated by assessing taxes to transportation users and taxes on the general public. Innovative financing mechanisms such as tax increment financing, special assessment districts, and others represent value capture techniques that tax property owners to pay for transportation costs. Value capture techniques provide supplemental funds to support capital construction costs but are not substitutes for existing dedicated and traditional tax revenue methods. The major findings of Texas practice indicate that tax increment financing for transit does not significantly contribute towards the transit infrastructure. Instead tax increment funds finance the improvement of public infrastructure surrounding transit stations and stops and can be labeled transit-supportive investments. / text

Motor fuel taxes have been collected as a principal source of highway funding for close to a century. They account for approximately two thirds of all the highway user fees and about half of all highway expenditures. Federal fuel taxes have not kept pace with the inflation in general and increasing traffic demand and resulting construction, maintenance and operation costs of the transportation assets in particular. Lack of political will, combined with rising anti-tax sentiment among the populace, has kept the federal tax level not only well below its initial intents, but also at a unsustainable level in future. Mileage based user fees are possibly an alternative to the fuel taxes, which have been the main mechanism for funding the transportation system. Mileage based user fees have been successfully utilized in many parts of the world with glowing results. Germany‟s “TollCollect”, a quasi government enterprise has utilized GPS technology in collecting the users‟ fee from the truck operators. The system has been a financial engine providing much needed funding for many major transportation projects. Oregon Department of Transportation, in a federally co-funded pilot project, examined the practicality of the mileage based user fee collection at the fuel pumps. According to the Oregon study, there are not any major technical difficulties in mileage based user fee collection at the pump. Study participants (general motorist) did not express any objection to the mileage based user fee collection. This dissertation evaluates revenue impacts of several pricing policies including: Current per gallon fuel taxes, conversion to a mileage based user fee, time of day user fee application, iv area type user fee and congestion priced user fees. State of Florida‟s years 2015-2035 fuel revenue forecast is used as a case study. A model is constructed to estimate annual vehicle miles travelled for the analyses period. Fuel efficiencies, current per gallon fuel taxes and their corresponding mileage-based user fee equivalents are the input to a financial model developed for comparisons. Results demonstrate that decrease in fuel revenues due to vehicles fuel efficiency improvements can be offset by replacing current per gallon fuel taxes with a mileage-based user fee. Pricing the user fee according to area type, roadway classification, time of day and congestion level can not only generate more revenues but also assist in demand management.