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A toll road (also called a: tollway, turnpike, toll highway, or express toll route) is a privately or publicly built road for which the user of the road is required to pay a fee, or toll. Tolls are a form of user tax that usually pays for the cost of road construction and maintenance without raising taxes on non-users. Historically, and sometimes today, tolls are collected as a type of tax for the use of the local government or lord. Investor's bonds necessary to pay for the construction and maintenance of the roads are issued and sold with the expectation that the bonds will be paid back over time by user tolls. After the bonds are paid off the road typically reverts to the government agency that owns the land it was built on and had authorized the construction. Access to toll roads are restricted to prevent non-payers from using the road. Toll roads may be built to allow some users to travel faster from one location to another—relieving traffic congestion and speeding up traffic for those who can afford it. These type systems may be one restricted toll lane or more on an otherwise "free" road—all roads have to be paid for somehow and are never "free". Normally, road construction costs are paid for by the taxes on gasoline, diesel, or other fuel. Users of toll roads still pay these taxes and the tolls for using this particular road or lane.
Fees or tolls usually vary by vehicle type, weight or number of axles. Fees or tolls were traditionally collected by hand by toll gate workers at toll booths, toll houses, toll plazas, toll stations, toll bars or toll gates. Some toll collection points are unmanned and the user deposits money in a receptacle which measures the amount and allows passage or entry if sufficient. To cut cost and minimize time delay many tolls today are collected with some form of automatic or electronic toll collection utilizing some sort of electronic communication from a toll payer's transponder and the toll collection system. Toll booths are usually still required for the occasional users who have not obtained a transponder—yet. The tolls are often prepaid or collected "automatically" from an affiliated credit card service. Some toll roads have "automated" toll enforcement systems that take photos of drivers and their license plates for people who do not pay the tolls—these non-payers typically get the toll bill along with a fine.
One of the criticisms of toll roads is the additional time they take to stop and pay for the tolls and the additional cost of paying for all the toll booth operators—up to about one-third of revenue in some cases. Automated toll paying systems help minimize the time lost for collecting tolls and the cost of toll collection operations. Others object to paying "twice" for the same road: in fuel taxes and with tolls.
In addition to toll roads, toll bridges and toll tunnels are also used by public authorities for revenue generation to repay for long-term debt issued to finance the building and maintenance of the toll facility. Some tolls are collected to accumulate finances to build future capacity expansion and maintenance of roads, tunnels, bridges, etc. Some tolls are used as general tax fund for local governments and may have little or nothing to do with transportation facilities. These types of tolls are usually limited or prohibited by central government legislation. Also road congestion pricing schemes have been implemented in a limited number of urban areas as a transportation demand management tool in an attempt to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution.
Origin
The original turnpikes — dating from the fifteenth century — were indeed spiked barriers, but they were designed to be placed across roads to prevent sudden attack by men on horseback. Later ones were horizontal timbers fitted with spikes, a version of what is called a cheval de frise, but the Oxford English Dictionary suggests that the mounting timbers of the originals may have been vertical, since a slightly later sense was of a horizontal cross of timbers turning on a vertical pin, set up to exclude horse-traffic from a footpath, which is in essence the device we now call a turnstile.
The word itself doesn’t come from turning spikes, but from turn and pike, the latter in the old sense of an infantry weapon with a pointed steel or iron head on a long wooden shaft. It’s the inclusion of turn here that suggests the pikes were the barrier, which could be turned aside about a vertical pivot to allow access.
From the middle of the seventeenth century onwards, many new toll roads were created in various parts of Britain through acts of Parliament. They were run by trusts, the tolls supposedly being put towards the cost of maintenance. Early toll gates were modelled on the old turnpike barriers and so the roads became known as turnpike roads, later shortened to just turnpikes.
History
Mythology
Tolls are mentioned in Greek mythology where Charon the ferryman charged a toll to carry the dead across the rivers Acheron and Styx to Hades. If the soul paid a toll, Charon ferried it across the river. If not, it wandered between death and life for eternity.
Ancient times
Toll roads are at least 2700 years old, as tolls had to be paid by travellers using the Susa–Babylon highway under the regime of Ashurbanipal, who reigned in the seventh century BC. Aristotle and Pliny refer to tolls in Arabia and other parts of Asia. In India, before the 4th century BC, the Arthasastra notes the use of tolls. Germanic tribes charged tolls to travellers across mountain passes. Tolls were used in the Holy Roman Empire in the 14th century and 15th century.
Middle ages
A 14th century example (though not for a road) is Castle Loevestein in the Netherlands, which was built at a strategic point where 2 rivers meet, and charged tolls on boats sailing along the river.
Many modern European roads were originally constructed as toll roads in order to recoup the costs of construction, maintenance and as a source of tax money that is paid primarily by someone other than the local residents. In 14th century England, some of the most heavily used roads were repaired with money raised from tolls by pavage grants. Wide spread toll roads sometimes restricted traffic so much, by their high tolls, that they interfered with trade and cheap transportation needed to alleviate local famines or shortages.
United Kingdom turnpikes
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Needing to build a better land transportation system than the existing and limited poorly maintained trails then being used, turnpike trusts were established in England and Wales starting in about 1706. Turnpike trusts were bodies set up by individual Acts of Parliament, with powers to collect road tolls for paying off bonds that were used for building, improving, and maintaining the principal roads in Britain. At the peak, in the 1830s, over 1,000 trusts administered around 30,000 miles (48,000 km) of turnpike road in England and Wales, taking tolls at almost 8,000 toll-gates. The trusts were ultimately responsible for the maintenance and improvement of most of the main roads in England and Wales which helped keep agriculture and industrial goods well distributed and prices low. The toll roads had the advantage that they were a source of revenue for road building and maintenance, via tolls, paid for by the users of the road and did not require a general tax. The turnpike trusts were gradually abolished starting in the 1870s. Most trusts improved existing roads, but some new ones, usually only short stretches of road, were also built. Thomas Telford's Holyhead road (now the A5 road) is exceptional as a particularly long new road, built in the early 19th century with many toll booths along its length.
Toll Roads elsewhere
Some cities in Canada had toll roads in the 19th Century. Roads radiating from Toronto required users to pay at toll gates along the street (Yonge Street, Bloor Street, Davenport Road, Kingston Road) and disappeared after 1895.
19th century plank roads were usually operated as toll roads. One of the first U.S. motor roads, the Long Island Motor Parkway (which opened on October 10, 1908) was built by William Kissam Vanderbilt II, the great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt. The road was closed in 1938 when it was taken over by the state of New York in lieu of back taxes.
20th Century
In the 20th century, road tolls were introduced in Europe for financing the construction of motorway networks and specific road infrastructure such as bridges and tunnels. Italy was the first European country to apply the use of motorway tolls on a 50 km motorway section near Milan in 1924. It was followed by Greece, which made users pay for the network of motorways around and between its cities in 1927. Later in the 1950s and 1960s, France, Spain and Portugal started to build motorways largely with the aid of concessions, allowing rapid development of this infrastructure without massive State debts. Since then, road tolls have been introduced in the majority of the EU Member States.
Charging methods
Main article: Road pricingRoad tolls were levied traditionally for a specific access (e.g. city) or for a specific infrastructure (e.g. roads, bridges). These concepts were widely used until the last century. However, the evolution in technology made it possible to implement road tolling policies based on different concepts. The different charging concepts are designed to suit different requirements regarding purpose of the charge, charging policy, the network to the charge, tariff class differentiation etc.:
Time Based Charges and Access Fees: In a time-based charging regime, a road user has to pay for a given period of time in which he may use the associated infrastructure. For the practically identical access fees, the user pays for the access to a restricted zone for a period or several days.
Motorway and other Infrastructure Tolling: The term tolling is used for charging a well-defined special and comparatively costly infrastructure, like a bridge, a tunnel, a mountain pass, a motorway concession or the whole motorway network of a country. Classically a toll is due when a vehicle passes a tolling station, be it a manual barrier-controlled toll plaza or a free-flow multi-lane station.
Distance or Area Charging: In a distance or area charging system concept, vehicles are charged per total distance driven in a defined area.
Some toll roads charge a toll in only one direction. Examples include the Severn Bridges where M4 in Great Britain crosses the River Severn, crossings between Pennsylvania and New Jersey operated by Delaware River Port Authority, and crossings between New Jersey and New York operated by Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. This technique is practical where the detour to avoid the toll is large or the toll differences are small.
Collection methods
Traditionally tolls were paid by hand at a toll gate. Although payments may still be made in cash, it is more common now to pay by credit card, by pre-paid card, or by an electronic toll collection system. In some European countries, payment is made using stickers which are affixed to the windscreen.
Three systems of toll roads exist: open (with mainline barrier toll plazas); closed (with entry/exit tolls) and open road (no toll booths, only electronic toll collection gantries at entrances and exits, or at strategic locations on the mainline of the road). Modern toll roads often use a combination of the three, with various entry and exit tolls supplemented by occasional mainline tolls: for example the Massachusetts Turnpike or "MassPike," the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the New York State Thruway implement both systems in different sections.
On an open toll system, all vehicles stop at various locations along the highway to pay a toll. While this may save money from the lack of need to construct toll booths at every exit, it can cause traffic congestion while traffic queues at the mainline toll plazas (toll barriers). It is also possible for motorists to enter an 'open toll road' after one toll barrier and exit before the next one, thus travelling on the toll road toll-free. Most open toll roads have ramp tolls or partial access junctions to prevent this practice, known as "shunpiking".
With a closed system, vehicles collect a ticket when entering the highway. In some cases, the ticket displays the toll to be paid on exit. Upon exit, the driver must pay the amount listed for the given exit. Should the ticket be lost, a driver must typically pay the maximum amount possible for travel on that highway. Short toll roads with no intermediate entries or exits may have only one toll plaza at one end, with motorists traveling in either direction paying a flat fee either when they enter or when they exit the toll road. In a variant of the closed toll system, mainline barriers are present at the two endpoints of the toll road, and each interchange has a ramp toll that is paid upon exit or entry. In this case, a motorist pays a flat fee at the ramp toll and another flat fee at the end of the toll road; no ticket is necessary. In addition, with most systems, motorists may only pay tolls with cash and/or change; debit and credit cards are not accepted. However, some toll roads may have travel plazas with ATMs so motorists can stop and withdraw cash for the tolls.
The toll is calculated by the distance travelled on the toll road. In the United States, for instance, the Kansas Turnpike, Ohio Turnpike, Pennsylvania Turnpike, New Jersey Turnpike, most of the Indiana Toll Road, and portions of the Massachusetts Turnpike, New York Thruway, and Florida's Turnpike currently implement closed systems.
The Union Toll Plaza on the Garden State Parkway was the first ever to use an automated toll collection machine. A plaque commemorating the event includes the first quarter collected at its toll booths.
The first major deployment of an RFID electronic toll collection system in the United States was on the Dallas North Tollway in 1989 by Amtech (see TollTag). The Amtech RFID technology used on the Dallas North Tollway was originally developed at Sandia Labs for use in tagging and tracking livestock. In the same year, the Telepass active transponder RFID system was introduced across Italy.
Highway 407 in the province of Ontario, Canada has no toll booths, and instead reads a transponder mounted on the windshields of each vehicle using the road (the rear license plates of vehicles lacking a transponder are photographed when they enter and exit the highway). This made the highway the first all-automated highway in the world. A bill is mailed monthly for usage of the 407. Lower charges are levied on frequent 407 users who carry electronic transponders in their vehicles. The approach has not been without controversy: In 2003 the 407 ETR settled a class action with a refund to users.
Throughout most of the East Coast of the United States, E-ZPass (operated under the brands I-Pass in Illinois, i-Zoom in Indiana, and Fast Lane in Massachusetts) is accepted on almost all toll roads. Similar systems include SunPass in Florida, FasTrak in California, and ExpressToll in Colorado. The systems use a small radio transponder mounted in or on a customer's vehicle to deduct toll fares from a pre-paid account as the vehicle passes through the toll barrier. This reduces manpower at toll booths and increases traffic flow and fuel efficiency by reducing the need for complete stops to pay tolls at these locations.
By designing a tollgate specifically for electronic collection, it is possible to carry out open-road tolling, where the customer does not need to slow at all when passing through the tollgate. The U.S. state of Texas is testing a system on a stretch of Texas 121 that has no toll booths. Drivers without a TollTag have their license plate photographed automatically and the registered owner will receive a monthly bill, at a higher rate than those vehicles with TollTags.
The first all-electric toll road in the eastern United States, the InterCounty Connector (Maryland Route 200) was partially opened to traffic in February 2011. The first section of another all-electronic toll road, the Triangle Expressway, opened at the beginning of 2012 in North Carolina.
Financing and management
Some toll roads are managed under such systems as the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) system. Private companies build the roads and are given a limited franchise. Ownership is transferred to the government when the franchise expires. This type of arrangement is prevalent in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, South Korea, Japan and the Philippines. The BOT system is a fairly new concept that is gaining ground in the United States, with California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia already building and operating toll roads under this scheme. Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Tennessee are also considering the BOT methodology for future highway projects.
The more traditional means of managing toll roads in the United States is through semi-autonomous public authorities. New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Kansas, Oklahoma, and West Virginia manage their toll roads in this manner. While most of the toll roads in California, Delaware, Florida, Texas, and Virginia are operating under the BOT arrangement, a few of the older toll roads in these states are still operated by public authorities.
In France, all toll roads are operated by private companies, and the government takes a part of their profit.
Criticism
Toll roads have been criticized as being inefficient in various ways:
- They require vehicles to stop or slow down, manual toll collection wastes time and raises vehicle operating costs.
- Collection costs can absorb up to one-third of revenues, and revenue theft is considered to be comparatively easy.
- Where the tolled roads are less congested than the parallel "free" roads, the traffic diversion resulting from the tolls increases congestion on the road system and reduces its usefulness.
- By tracking the vehicle locations, their drivers are subject to an effectual restriction of their freedom of movement and freedom from excessive surveillance.
- As supply is monopolistic, the toll road price is not determined by competition, nor by service costs, but are much higher being set to maximize the total cost upon the users.
- So long as there was sufficient demand to build the road, the total cost to the public will be higher than if the road was publicly funded.
See also
- List of toll roads
- High-occupancy toll
- Private highway
- Road pricing
- Shadow toll
- Shunpiking, the practice of avoiding turnpikes.
- The Phantom Tollbooth, a children's novel
- Toll house
- Barrier toll system
- Toll roads around the world
References
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- "Road Pricing Defined". Federal Highway Administration. Retrieved 2012-05-23.
- Gilliet, Henri (1990). "Toll roads-the French experience." Transrouts International, Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.
- Bernstein, William J.; "The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created"; p. 245-6; McGraw-Hill (2010); ISBN 978-0071747042
- Parliamentary Papers, 1840, Vol 280 xxvii.
- Searle 1930, p. 798. harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSearle1930 (help)
- Toronto.ca
- Lostrivers.ca
- Patton, Phil (2008-10-12). "A 100-Year-Old Dream: A Road Just for Cars". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-03-27.
- BBS.keyhole.com
- Jordi, Philipp (2008): "Institutional Aspects of Directive 2004/52/EC on the Interoperability of Electronic Road Toll Systems in the Community." Europainstitut der Universität Basel.
- Oehry, Bernhard (2004): Tolling with Satellites - a System Concept for Everybody?" in: Jordi, Philipp (2008): "Institutional Aspects of Directive 2004/52/EC on the Interoperability of Electronic Road Toll Systems in the Community." Europainstitut der Universität Basel.
- "Union Watersphere". lostinjersey.wordpress.com. March 19, 2009. Retrieved 2012-02-23.
- Template:PDFlink
- Texas 121
- Michael Dresser (2011-02-07). "First phase of ICC to open Feb. 22". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 2011-02-07.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - "Drivers roll on state's first toll road". WRAL.com. 31-01-2012. Retrieved 04-07-2012.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=and|date=(help) - Toll Road Bill Passage a Milestone for Mississippi, Mississippi DOT Website, May 11, 2007
- Roth, Gabriel (1998). Roads in a market economy. Ashgate Publishing Company. p. 122. ISBN 0-291-39814-6 (HB).
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External links
- Overview of European Tolling Systems
- International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association The International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) is the worldwide alliance of toll operators and associated industries that provides a forum for sharing knowledge and ideas to promote and enhance toll-financed transportation services.
- Turnpikes and Toll Roads in Nineteenth-Century America (EH.Net Economic History encyclopaedia)
- Collection of tollroad news from contractor perspective
- English Turnpike roads, for background on toll roads during the turnpike era in England
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