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Utah DOT lays out road‑usage charge program as Minnesota weighs RUC options
Summary
Utah Department of Transportation officials described their voluntary road‑usage charge (RUC) program to Minnesota’s Electricity as Vehicle Fuel Working Group, detailing enrollment, reporting options, administrative costs and a 12.5% EV‑charging tax that helps offset per‑mile rates. Officials said Utah’s experience can inform Minnesota policy design.
Lede: Utah Department of Transportation officials told Minnesota’s Electricity as Vehicle Fuel Working Group on Dec. 15 that their voluntary road‑usage charge program, in operation since 2020, offers lessons on enrollment, privacy protections and cost control as Minnesota considers a similar model.
Nut graf: Lyle McMillan, UDOT’s director of strategic technologies, said the program gives EV owners a choice between an odometer‑photo method and telematics, and that Utah has scaled to more than 11,000 participants by reducing administrative complexity and moving to quarterly billing. He and Leif Elder, UDOT’s legislative affairs director, emphasized that program design choices — caps, reporting method and whether to offset with an EV‑charging tax — determine both fairness and revenue outcomes.
UDOT’s RUC design and participation: “We started in 2020,” McMillan said, describing the program’s voluntary approach and its two mileage‑reporting options: an odometer photo sent through an app and telematics that come directly from the vehicle. McMillan said telematics and odometer uploads ended up roughly 50/50 among users, increasing vendor costs compared with initial expectations but lowering user friction for many participants.
Rates, revenue and offsets: McMillan presented the program’s current rate of 1.11¢ per mile and said the rate will increase to 1.25¢ per mile on Jan. 1 under statutory indexing. He also described a “gas‑tax neutral” benchmark — about 1.84¢ per mile under UDOT’s stated assumptions (a 40¢/gallon state fuel tax, 22 mpg average, and 13,884 miles/year) — and explained that Utah applies a 12.5% EV‑charging tax on public charging sessions that can offset RUC revenue if policymakers choose.
Administration, privacy and scaling: McMillan said UDOT reduced program costs by switching from monthly to quarterly reporting, adopting an odometer photo app (which removes location tracking), and consolidating vendor roles. He noted volume discounts in vendor contracts kick in at around 50,000 participants, and projected 17,000 customers by next fiscal year with an expenses‑to‑revenue ratio that could fall substantially at larger scale.
Policy tradeoffs and local options: In questions from Minnesota legislators and industry, UDOT staff discussed privacy protections (no location data provided to the state), options to allow local‑rate components with participant consent, and the tradeoffs of removing the program cap. Leif Elder said the 12.5% EV‑charging tax was created partly to capture revenue from nonresidents who use public chargers while visiting Utah.
What’s next for Minnesota: Members of the working group asked UDOT to brief Minnesota agencies further on the program’s fiscal modeling and implementation steps. McMillan offered to share analyses showing when RUC would be revenue neutral under different assumptions.
