The Pankian Metaphor 3143

ref:

so for another method of coming up with first order approximation, is to move all existing fuel taxes to just heavy trucking fuel use.

the detailed road design articles claim that the number of heavy truck axle-loads is the driving factor and that all other types of vehicle use can be ignored. so first order approximation is to recover the same current total fuel taxes by just taxing fuel used by heavy trucks. the 2nd order approximation is that fuel taxes only cover a portion of road building and operations. to get better approx.of total heavy truck related infrastructure cost, divide the the initial approxmimation by the fraction of total road build and operation costs covered by fuel taxes.

so some guesses about actual values and then the formula ... and then initial approximation.

first we need to know the current avg. fuel taxes-gal, lets say is sixty cents for estimated avg. combined-total fuel taxes.

then we need to know the percent of total fuel consumption by heavy trucking ... for calculations I'll use a maximum of .05 and a minium of .01 (i.e. heavy trucking industry accounts for somewhere between 1percent and 5percent of total highway fuel consumption).

then first order approximation (moving nearly all fuel taxes from all vehicles to just heavy trucking as first order approx) is within the range of

$.60-(max .05, min .01) = (min $12-gal, max $60-gal)

so the 2nd order approx. is what portion of total road costs (build and operate) is covered by fuel taxes. for calculations lets buttume that it is somewhere in the .3 to .5 range (the rest funded by general revenues). the improved calculation then is

(min $12, max $60)-(max .5, min .3) = (min $24-gal, max $200-gal)

so an initial guestimate as to transferring fully loaded heavy trucking infrastructure costs to the heavy trucking industry via the use of per gal. fuel tax comes up to be in the range of between $24-gal and $200-gal,

your actual mileage may vary if you come up with more accurate values to my guestimates.

For instance, if you use a value of $.40-gal for total fuel tax, the range drops to

$.40-(max .05, min .01) = (min $8-gal, max $30-gal) and (min $8, max $30)-(max. .5, min .3) = (min $16-gal, max $100-gal)

If it turns out that the heavy trucking industry only accounts for half percent of total highway fuel consumption, it changes the calculation to

$.60-.005 = $120-gal and ($120-gal)-(max .5, min .3) = (min $240-gal, max $400-gal)

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