I was wondering about the stage of development related to the OReGo idea : This looks like the latest info. The name has changed and it is now a regional study. This is a bid solicitation:
http://oregonprocurementsearch.com/details/3032
Following on to the last two posts this is where the rubber meets the road and where the invasion of privacy makes money.
It is truly a monument to the advancement of the technology of the Internet of Things and slick marketing in a public/private effort to get people to enthusiastically become a Thing in the Internet of things.
"Freedom. Adventure. Responsibility. Oregonians expressed these values most often when asked to describe what Oregon’s Road Usage Charge Program should represent. By popular preference, the road usage charge program is now named “OReGO” and has a new logo to match, ODOT officials said Wednesday."
What did I just say about the great American Dream of the open road in my prior blog entry? There it goes into history.
"Presented with 12 options, the OReGO name and logo shown was chosen by 80 percent of participants. Comments included: “It says ‘Go with Oregon’ or ‘Oregon here we go’;” “It is a fun name…I visualize a dog with its head out the window…and going out and exploring Oregon…it has that kind of fun, forward thinking;” “Gives me an idea what the program is for;” “Over time …everybody would know exactly what this is.”
Chilling! The dog will of course have a biometric collar on it connected to the Internet of things. The driver will simply be wearing a biometric iWatch.
Unbelievable but it will happen. There is money to be made in this "public/private" partnership. The public side being the enforcement agency to implement statewide law.
Oregon is the first state to do this. What happened to the unofficial state motto of "live and let live".
Who exactly is the private entity in this relationship???
OreGo website: OreGo.org
Partners in this public/private enterprise:
Sanef: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SANEF
Raytheon and IMS Insurance are associated with Sanef, a French company,
Azuga: http://www.azuga.com GPS tracking via the car's OBDll device.
Verizon: obviously the communications provider.
The Oregon Senate Bill that set this up:
http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/RUFPP/docs/SB_810_Enrolled_Road_User_Charges_%282013%29.pdf
This is the Road User Fee Task Force:
http://www.oregon.gov/odot/hwy/rufpp/pages/ruftf.aspx
Tammy Baney is the OTC Commissioner.
http://www.oregon.gov/newsroom/Pages/NewsDetail.aspx?newsid=596
This is really a toll road system in disguise to privatize revenue in a revenue sharing plan with government from the use of public roads. It is in fact the privatization of public domain assets for the extraction of profit.
"The fee — 1.5 cents a mile — will roll out July 1, 2015 through 5,000 volunteer participants. ODOT and the volunteers will see how it works, and then the Oregon legislature will decide when it will be expanded to the rest of the state’s drivers."
Read more at: http://wakeupfromyourslumber.com/oregon-to-charge-drivers-by-the-mile/
Read more at: http://wakeupfromyourslumber.com/oregon-to-charge-drivers-by-the-mile/
This at this link:
http://knowledgecenter.csg.org/kc/content/interest-grows-mileage-based-user-fees-fund-transportation
"“On the commercial side though, we intend for the account managers to start a business,” said Whitty. “They will be able to recruit and choose volunteers. They will be able to use any type of mileage reporting technology that meets the standards of the department and they can change it over time. … They’ll be able to sell value-added services. … They will be able to bundle those services in a single billing and combine their account management practices with other value-added services. They will be able to sell mileage data if they can get approval for the sale and they can retain it beyond 30 days with consent of the road usage charge payer. … The commercial side is where we want to put all of our effort. We want that to be very successful.”
Look at this closely; "Value added services" that is where the money is. That is where to exploit the government granted monopoly to operate this program.
Whitty is the ODOT point person for this program:
"
Whitty: Senate Bill 810 demonstrates that the legislature is willing to go forward on this topic. They want one final demonstration with 5,000 volunteers, and when that works, they’ll be willing to go forward with mandatory mileage charges where people are obligated to pay."W - See more at: http://reason.org/news/show/1013709.html#.dpuf
Note well the words mandatory and obliged.
Based on a program used by 5,000 volunteers we are effectively giving them the vote with ODOT approval on mandatory program legislation. They would pay 1.5 cents per mile in lieu of gas tax of 30 cents per gallon?? Is that how it would work? That hardly figures. Must be more to it.
This is a revealing site:
http://reason.org/news/show/1013709.html#.dpuf
"Mr. Whitty currently oversees development of a permanently operational road use charging program which will deploy cutting-edge approaches to road use charging under an open technology platform with motorist choice and implementation through public private partnerships as central features.
Mr. Whitty is a co-founder of the Western Road Usage Charge Consortium consisting of states engaging in road usage charge information transfer and joint research on the topic of mileage charging. Mr. Whitty is a co-founder and vice chairman of the Mileage Based User Fee Alliance, an entity with a mission of educating policymakers on road use charging and headquartered in Washington DC.
Mr. Whitty brings a private sector perspective to his role in transportation policy. His prior experience includes 10 years working with transportation finance and environmental public policies for Associated Oregon Industries, the Portland Chamber of Commerce and six years in private law practice. He obtained his bachelor’s degree and Juris Doctorate from the University of Oregon."
Note: Reason Foundation supports libertarian principles!
Whitty is vice chairman of the Milage Based User Fee Alliance:
http://mbufa.org/alliance.html
Is he entirely impartial to the private enterprise interest in privatizing government functions?
From this site:
http://mbufa.org/alliance.html
"ODOT’s Jim Whitty, the architect of the program, has been on a whirlwind tour, responding to requests from states for more information about what they’re doing in Oregon and how they’re pulling it off. Last week he came to Washington, DC, to speak with members of Congress, key Senate committee aides, White House staff — and this reporter. I got answers to these 10 questions I had about the new plan."
This smacks of a government official selling a plan sponsored by a special interest group. Conflict of interest here? Is his vice chair a paid position?
This is what Whitty said about GPS tracking;
"
How did Oregon get past privacy concerns?They bagged the idea of requiring any kind of GPS tracker. “You can’t mandate GPS and get this done,” Whitty said. “You’ve got to give people options that don’t involve GPS.” Though a GPS tracker isn’t really more of a violation of privacy than your cell phone or E-ZPass, the issue has been an obstacle to rational discussion about the pros and cons of a VMT system. In Oregon’s first pilot VMT program, they gave out trackers, but people didn’t like having government surveillance devices in their cars. For the second pilot, this past winter, people could pick their own device from the marketplace, and they found that more comfortable. Plus, there’s an option to just report mileage from the odometer."
In other words don't worry if the GPS is reporting to private enterprise instead of the government.
"Why would anyone choose to participate in the program? That’s a question Whitty couldn’t really answer yet. People whose vehicles currently get less than 17 miles per gallon will have an incentive to sign up, since the VMT fee will probably be less than the gas tax rebate they’ll be getting. But the program will only accept 1,500 people with such low mileage out of 5,000 volunteers."
Note that this is a referendum with 5000 voters. 1500 will surely be very enthusiastic. The rest would probably swing the vote at least?
Jack Basso chairman MBUFA congratulated Whitty for his efforts here:
Finally, I would like to thank Jim Whitty (Oregon DOT) for his key contribution in
helping launch MBUFA and for his valuable service for the past four years as
Vice Chair of MBUFA's Board of Directors. At the same time, I want to thank and
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congratulate Caltrans Acting Chief Deputy Director Norma Ortega as she
succeeds Jim as Vice Chair.
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Must be busy handling both a government job and doing so much for a private entity related to and having interest in their government job.
Note the Executive Director's comments about Whitty at this site and also she welcomes SANEF as a member.
Cozy?
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