GPS

Mobile Phones

Location Data Could Unlock a Less Car-Centric Future

A report from the Brookings Institution shows how planners can use new types of anonymized data to inform mobility planning decisions.

October 22, 2020 - Route Fifty

Social Media Apps

A Public Transit App for Knoxville, Tennessee

Years after other cities implemented transit trackers, Knoxville is getting a bus tracker to help commuters move through the city.

April 7, 2019 - Knoxville News Sentinel

Downtown Denver

Colorado DOT Issues Final Report on Road Usage Charge Pilot Program

Most of the 150 volunteers who participated in the 4-month program were pleased. Simulated invoices charged for vehicle-miles traveled after gas taxes paid were credited. Three technologies, including one with GPS, were available to record mileage.

December 19, 2017 - The Denver Post

Toll Road Truck

Is Privacy Overrated as a Concern for Mileage Fees?

'Big Brother' has long been voiced as a criticism of charging motorists by the mile driven, but in the ongoing Oregon road usage charge program, more than 75 percent of volunteer enrollees opted for a recording technology with GPS.

August 19, 2016 - Planetizen

GPS Tech Breakthrough Has Big Implications for the Future of Transportation

It's easy to think of GPS technology as a personal navigation device, but the potential for a faster, cheaper GPS technology extends deep into the emerging Internet of Things.

March 1, 2016 - CityLab

California's Road Usage Charge Pilot Program to Begin on July 1

The California Road Charge Pilot will be the nation's second road usage charge program. Unlike OReGO, which launched last July, it is a pilot program that will last nine months, but like the Oregon program, it is restricted to 5,000 volunteers.

January 30, 2016 - Streetsblog California

Need Convincing that Vehicle-Miles-Traveled Fees Make Sense?

Eric Jaffe's July 1 article in CityLab has 18 reasons, and not one in opposition. The date is significant as it marks the official kickoff of the Oregon Road Usage Charge program.

July 6, 2015 - CityLab

Geospatial Technologies for a Healthier, Sustainable, and Increasingly Urban Earth

Penn IUR Co-Directors Genie Birch and Susan Wachter write about the promise of geospatial technologies in promoting sustainable urbanization.

June 1, 2015 - Penn Institute for Urban Research

Toll Road Truck

Is the Road Usage Charge the Future of Road Funding?

"The road usage charge is the logical evolution in the way we fund surface transportation," stated Patrick Jones, Executive Director of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association at their annual transportation conference in Portland.

April 28, 2015 - Planetizen

Los Angeles Harbor Freeway

Farewell to the Trusty Map Book

From the years roughly spanning the invention of the automobile to the invention of the smartphone, every driver in Los Angeles traveled with a Thomas Bros. map book. Those days are gone, but nostalgia for physical maps remains.

April 13, 2015 - New York Times Magazine

GPS Technology Chosen for Oregon's Road Usage Charge

Oregon's much heralded mileage fee program, known as OReGO, has selected the technology to record the miles driven by participants. A French and Canadian company will collaborate to provide a telematics road usage charging framework to begin July 1.

March 11, 2015 - Automotive News

The History of GPS—Back to the First Century

A new book details the primitive origins of the GPS tracking technologies that are so pervasive in today’s mobile-phone-enabled world.

April 15, 2014 - Mother Jones

PBS Explores Charging-by-the-Mile

The auto fleet is becoming greener - not just with hybrids and electric vehicles, but all new vehicles are required to be more fuel efficient. While that is good for the environment, declining gas tax revenues threaten the nation's infrastructure.

December 11, 2013 - PBS NewsHour

Answers on the Nation's First VMT Fee Law

With Oregon set to implement their vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) fee program, Streetsblog's Tanya Snyder provides answers to ten questions, including the privacy challenge, that she posed to ODOT’s Jim Whitty, architect of the program.

October 14, 2013 - Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Mapping Slums to Shape Them

A mapping effort led by a group of cartographers called the Spatial Collective is helping to make visible what it's like to live in the Nairobi slum of Mathare. By giving form to the informal settlement, its problems are being made evident.

July 17, 2013 - NPR

Replacing the Gas Tax: Two States Choose Different Strategies

What is the future of the "deeply flawed" state gas tax? Lemov Penelope compares the approaches taken by VA and OR - both plan to eliminate it and replace it with alternatives - a state sales tax and a vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) fee, respectively.

January 21, 2013 - Governing Magazine

Paying by the Mile - Not a Question of "If" but "When and by How Much"

Justin Hyde is firmly in the camp that 'Vehicle-Miles-Traveled' (VMT) fees are coming - and the release of a GAO report last month may support that contention. Privacy concerns from GPS and collection costs are challenges that were considered.

January 14, 2013 - Motoramic (Yahoo! Autos blog)

Bay Area to Study Regional VMT Fee

The Bay Area's two regional agencies approved funding a study to pursue a 9-county "vehicle-miles-traveled" fee of as much as 10-cents per mile that could involve GPS technology to fund regional transportation improvements.

July 23, 2012 - San Jose Mercury News

States Take the Lead in Implementing Driving Fees

With D.C. abandoning its leadership position in funding road infrastructure improvements, states such as Oregon and Minnesota are going forward with pilot plans to transition to road usage fees.

June 6, 2012 - USA Today

Bike + GPS = Digital Doodling Over the Streets of Baltimore

A Baltimore schoolteacher uses his phone and his bicycle to construct whimsical sketches on digital maps of the city, Nate Berg reports.

May 9, 2012 - The Atlantic Cities

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