Carma and Texas Partners Complete the Nation’s Largest Road Usage Charge Pilot

November 2025

Carma Technology, in partnership with the Texas Department of Transportation and the North Central Texas Council of Governments, has completed Miles Matter, the largest road usage charge (RUC) pilot ever conducted in the United States.

With more than 41,000 enrolled participants and over 64 million miles of real-world driving captured, Miles Matter exceeded the combined scale of all prior U.S. RUC pilots. The program demonstrated that policy-grade mileage data, sustained user engagement, and operational flexibility can be achieved simultaneously—without in-vehicle hardware—using a smartphone-first approach.

Most U.S. RUC pilots have involved hundreds or a few thousand volunteers. Miles Matter operated at orders-of-magnitude greater scale, providing statistically meaningful insight into real-world driving behavior, user retention, administrative performance, and cost dynamics under sustained participation.

Independent evaluation by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute confirmed the pilot’s relevance for future statewide and multi-state RUC planning, particularly around cost scaling, policy design, and administrative feasibility.

Beyond mileage collection, Miles Matter demonstrated how smartphones can function as a direct policy interface between agencies and travelers. Participants received transparent, near-real-time feedback on road usage, allowing them to understand how travel choices influence charges and respond to pricing or incentive structures—capabilities not possible with fuel taxes or hardware-based systems.

Because the platform is cloud-based and hardware-free, agencies were able to modify program rules and parameters rapidly, implementing policy updates in minutes rather than months. Evaluation results also showed that per-user administrative costs decline sharply at higher enrollment levels, a critical requirement for future statewide deployment.

Miles Matter provides strong evidence that smartphone-based RUC systems can support mileage-based funding, managed lanes integration, and tolling interoperability while avoiding the cost, friction, and equity challenges associated with dedicated in-vehicle devices.