I don’t think we’ll ever get a perfectly fair system, but in an ideal world there would be some kind of calculus based on (weight of vehicle × miles driven per year) or something similar. That would put us in a situation analogous to where we are with drinking water. Trucking companies would pay orders of magnitude more into the system than individual commuters, but everyone would have at least some incentive to avoid excessive use. And those costs would factor into the economics of the products we buy. Just as the cost of an almond should have some connection to how much water was used to grow it, the cost of having goods shipped to my home should have some connection to the cost that the delivery truck put on the roads. People who made conscious decisions to avoid private vehicle use would pay the least of all, just as people who currently practice water conservation pay less for their monthly water bill.
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