Here at CLF, in addition to our extensive policy work to improve transportation choices in both urban and rural communities across New England, we’ve long advocated for market-based approaches to encourage people to drive less as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, and traffic congestion. That’s why, in conjunction with Massachusetts Car-Free Week, we’re proud to announce a new pilot study that our non-profit affiliate, CLF Ventures, will be conducting in 2014.

Funded by a $2.1 million Federal Highway Administration Value Pricing Program grant administered by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, and with an in-kind contribution from Plymouth Rock Assurance, the three-year study will explore how rewarding people for driving less affects their driving behavior.

Specifically, CLF Ventures will examine how the size and timing of cash rewards, and how those rewards are communicated, can motivate people to adjust how much, when, and where they drive. The study will help us understand the economic and environmental implications of these behavioral changes, and will provide, for the first time, publicly available data about these behavioral impacts so that states, insurers, and motorists can learn more about the effectiveness of various incentives for reducing driving. Using in-vehicle telematics devices, the study will collect data on miles traveled and when a driver enters different geographic zones, such as Metro Boston or Metro North, but it will not track specific locations.

As CLF President John Kassel states:

“CLF strongly believes in market-based approaches to addressing environmental problems. For more than 15 years, we’ve championed innovative methods to reduce driving as a way to achieve real environmental benefits. This study is an important next step in providing the data policymakers and insurance companies need to design effective voluntary programs that encourage reductions in driving on a large scale. We need to pursue every option available to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to meet Massachusetts’s – and the region’s – climate goals.”

Financial incentives to drive less can provide a win all-around for Massachusetts consumers, residents, insurers, policymakers, and the environment:

• Consumers can earn rewards for driving less.
  
  
• All Massachusetts residents will benefit from improved road safety and reduced traffic congestion that result when people drive less.
  
  
• Insurers can provide an incentive to policyholders that reduces driving, thereby reducing the number and cost of auto accident claims.
  
  
• Policymakers will benefit by having real data that reflects how consumers change their driving behavior when incentivized to do so.
  
  
• The environment will benefit from the reduction in vehicle miles – less driving means reduced fuel usage, better air quality, and lower climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions.

Groups of randomly selected, current Plymouth Rock policyholders will be invited to participate in the pilot study, which will begin in 2014. Potential participants can accept or decline the invitation to participate; they cannot “volunteer” to join the study. The study will enroll approximately 3,000 Plymouth Rock policyholders in Massachusetts from a representative mix of vehicle classes, geographic territories, and coverage characteristics. Participants will pay their normal insurance premiums, regardless of how many miles they drive, and can earn per-mile cash rewards for reducing the miles they drive.

Considerable data security measures will be in place to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the voluntary study participants and protect their personal information. Participants will be told what data will be used and how, and must provide their consent. Data released to the public will be scrubbed of personal/identifying information and only made available in aggregate form.

We know that reducing miles driven can decrease emissions of climate-altering greenhouse gases and health-damaging air pollutants, ease traffic congestion, and improve road safety. What we don’t know is to what extent driver behavior can be influenced through financial rewards and incentives. This pilot study is a great way to find out.

The post New CLF Ventures Study to Reward Drivers for Driving Less appeared first on Conservation Law Foundation.

This post is part of a series on transportation issues affecting Massachusetts. Look for more from Rafael Mares and Christine Chilingerian in the coming weeks. To stay up to date, visit this www.clf.org/blog/tag/MA4Trans/ or follow the hashtag #MA4TRANS on Twitter.

Massachusetts relies on several sources of funding for its transportation system. In addition to user fees—such as transit fares, registry fees, and tolls—and federal dollars for capital projects, a good portion of the system is funded through state gas and sales taxes. Both the gas tax and the sales tax, however, have been providing less revenue than originally expected or planned.

For one, the gas tax has not been increased since 1991. Due to inflation, the value of the gas tax is trickling away over time. In Massachusetts, we’ve lost 41% of the 1991 gas tax’s purchasing power as costs rise and cars become increasingly fuel-efficient. It is now worth only 12.4 cents in 1991 dollars. That’s a paltry amount, especially in light of the fact that it was originally worth 21 cents. Consider that, over the same time period, other staple consumer goods have increased in price, for example, the average cost of a pound of flour has more than doubled. It is clear that the gas tax hasn’t kept pace. Consider also that state gas taxes are higher in every other New England state, with the sole exception of New Hampshire, which is currently considering a gas tax increase whose rate would put Massachusetts in last place in our region. Nationwide, Massachusetts currently ranks 29 in the gas tax; Wyoming’s pending gas tax increase could make the Commonwealth drop to number 30 by July 1st.  That should not be a point of pride.

In 2000, the last time the legislature considered a major funding bill for transportation, the sales tax had just experienced a decade of 6.5% growth per year. A portion of the sales tax was dedicated to transportation at the time with an assumption that it would increase at least 3% per year. In reality, the sales tax, however, only increased an average of 1% per year, leaving the system significantly underfunded. While the legislature responded with some smaller fixes over the last few years, none were large enough to correct the problem.

If we want to solve some of the problems I identified in an earlier post, we need to raise new revenue for transportation. It doesn’t have to come from the gas tax or the sales tax, but it has to come from somewhere.

The post Under the Hood of the Massachusetts Transportation System: Why is our transportation system underfunded? appeared first on Conservation Law Foundation.

Transportation options in nothern tier states like Maine are a critical part of sustainable communities and a low-impact ecncomy. Photo credit: Lawrence Whittemore @ flickr

Let’s face it: population density is a critical factor in any decision to provide transit services. In CLF’s “northern tier” states, where dense populations are limited to a few metropolitan areas, transportation options like bus services  have been slow to develop, leaving people to drive. In asking for directions from one place to another, the response most often is: “You’re on your own.”

In Maine, for example, Portland and surrounding towns and cities are served by a number of independent municipal fixed-route bus systems, an inter-city commuter bus linking Portland with a few cities in southern Maine, and an outlying “on demand” provider. But there is no regular service between Portland and Maine’s second-largest metro area, Lewiston-Auburn, about 40 miles away. Maine’s L/A has a growing immigrant population and plenty of affordable housing, but greater Portland, where housing is expensive, is the locus of most employment expansion.

CLF Maine has been working with the elected leaders of these areas to promote new ways for commuters on this corridor to avoid single-occupancy vehicle commuting, and provide greater connectivity to Portland’s air, bus, and train transportation hub. Recently, at the urging of Auburn’s mayor, Jonathan Labonte and Portland’s mayor Mike Brennan, Portland’s city council voted to explore this option, as reported here.

It’s an encouraging step in the right direction and validates the work of CLF and its partners to create a unified transit authority for the entire southern Maine region. This would promote better customer service and alignment among providers as disparate as a ferry service, Amtrak, and local bus lines, and provide the potential for common investment and bonding authority.

The post Expanding Transit Options in a Rural State: An Update From Maine appeared first on Conservation Law Foundation.

Photo credit: Jaypeg @ flickr

Peer-to-peer (“P2P”) car-sharing is gathering some major mainstream steam in New England and the rest of the country. RelayRides, originally founded in Cambridge and now one of the major players in the P2P car-sharing space, has officially begun a partnership with General Motor’s OnStar service that will give millions of vehicle owners the ability to start making money off their vehicle in seconds. The new partnership has the potential to benefit not only the region’s environment, but also its economy and residents – cars owners and not, alike.

For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, P2P car-sharing works by providing a platform, usually a web-based car-sharing service, that connects renters with a short-term need for a vehicle directly to a vehicle owner willing to rent out their personal vehicle for a fee. In areas where it is available, P2P car-sharing provides financial benefits for all parties involved. Renters avoid the high costs of vehicle ownership while still having access to a vehicle for an hourly rate when needed. The car-sharing service collects a percentage of the vehicle owner’s rental revenue and gains access to a fleet of rental vehicles without incurring the huge capital costs involved in running a traditional car rental service. Meanwhile, vehicle owners can defray their own costs of ownership by collecting rental revenue during the time that their vehicle would otherwise sit unused.

In addition to being a potential boon for vehicle owners, the widespread adoption of P2P car-sharing could also have environmental benefits. A recent study by UC-Berkeley’s Transportation Sustainability Research Center suggests that car-sharing reduces household vehicle ownership by both allowing households that own multiple vehicles to shed one or more and also deterring carless households from ever purchasing a vehicle. Environmental advocates hope that this reduction in household vehicle ownership will reduce the carbon footprint of transportation by resulting in a lower number of total vehicle miles traveled (“VMT”) and a decrease in traffic congestion.

The new RelayRides/OnStar partnership has the potential to take P2P car-sharing beyond the daydreams of ardent environmentalists. Having already invested an undisclosed sum in RelayRides’ early round venture financing, General Motors (“GM”) doubled down on their investment by giving RelayRides members integrated web-access to their network of nearly 6 million GM vehicles with active OnStar subscriptions. OnStar subscribers with an eligible GM vehicle will be able to sign up for RelayRides online through their OnStar account and allow members, with an approved reservation, to instantly unlock their vehicle using either a smartphone app or by replying to a text message.

The new web-access technology streamlines the P2P car-sharing experience, removing the need for renters and vehicle owners to arrange to meet in person and exchange keys. In addition, many OnStar equipped vehicles include theft-prevention technology that can block a vehicle’s ignition or force it to slow to a stop and theft recovery technology that includes pinpoint location through GPS. GM hopes the added security and convenience of the partnership will create an added incentive for subscription to or renewal of their OnStar service while RelayRides hopes the new technology will help differentiate it from competitors and increase membership.

As highlighted by the liability issues surrounding a fatal accident recently covered by the New York Times, there are still kinks to be worked out in the P2P car-sharing model. These include things like clarifying how car-sharing will be treated for insurance liability purposes.  Despite these uncertainties, the partnership between GM and RelayRides could be a major step towards bringing P2P car-sharing closer to mainstream acceptance. Clf is hopeful that support from one of the world’s largest automakers is a good sign both for the burgeoning P2P car-sharing market and the environment as a whole.

The post Peer-to-Peer Car-Sharing Benefits New England, Car Owners appeared first on Conservation Law Foundation.