Author – Mary Beth Lowell – Communications Manager

Baltimore_trafficWith Election Day around the corner, taxes are a hot topic among politicians and voters alike.

Would you be willing to be tracked with GPS in order to better allocate, perhaps even reduce, your taxes?

The city of Baltimore is currently looking for 450 local volunteers who are willing to allow their vehicles to be tracked over a span of 8 months. The study, funded by the federal government, will use GPS to track each volunteer’s mileage as well as where he/she drove during that time span.

This information will give researchers an idea of which roads – federal, state or local – are actually being used. The volunteers will then receive a fake bill with the amount of money ("road fees") they owe each month based on which roads they traveled and how much they traveled.

The theory behind the study is that the current gas tax, which funds transportation initiatives, is not properly allocating the money. It also means that drivers would only be paying for the amount of miles they actually drive. Similar systems are already in existence in Europe.

GPS tracking, however, is a sensitive topic and some U.S. citizens have raised privacy concerns over this type of monitoring. The project manager of this Baltimore test insists that, were this to become an adopted system, there will be safeguards in place to ensure "no precise locational information would be reported to authorities." He compared it to technologies like EZ-Pass.

What do you think? Would you be willing to let your vehicle be tracked in order to potentially save money on taxes?