Video: ATRI Surveys Truckers on Transportation Funding Options
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — In a survey conducted by a national research firm, truckers at the Mid-America Trucking Show were asked how they thought the country’s transportation system should be funded in the coming years.
The American Transportation Research Institute collected insight and perspective from the commercial drivers who make highways their places of work. The information from the surveys will help to compile a highway funding study.
“We’re doing a lot of analysis on the different types — not only the diesel and fuel tax — but tolling, mileage-based user fees. So we thought it’d be interesting to get driver input on how they think we should fund the transportation system,” Rebecca Brewster, ATRI’s president and COO, told Transport Topics on March 24.
At the federal level, policymakers are struggling to agree on a long-term funding mechanism for the country’s transportation grid. In three years, an account used to help states finance infrastructure maintenance and new projects is projected to be insolvent. The account, called the Highway Trust Fund, is backed by revenue from gas and diesel taxes that are no longer sufficient.
ATRI recently published a report outlining potential benefits of real-time parking notifications for truckers. The research firm also plans to release in April an update of its freight congestion report.
Rebecca Brewster offers a survey to owner-operator Mary Peterson Norton of Norton Trucking. (John Sommers II for TT)