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A high-speed toll booth on SR 417 near Orlando, Florida, United States

A toll plaza in the United Kingdom

A toll road (also tollway, turnpike, toll highway, or express toll route) is a privately or publicly built road for which the driver is required to pay a fee, or toll. Fees were traditionally collected by hand at toll booth, toll house, toll plaza, toll station, toll bar or toll gate, but nowadays more tolls are implementing some form of automatic or electronic toll collection.

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 toll facility, or to reinvest in capacity expansion or used to pay for operations and maintenance of the facility, or simply as general tax funds. Also road congestion pricing schemes have been implemented in a limited number of urban areas as a transportation demand management tool to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution.^[1]

History[link]

A table of tolls in pre-decimal currency for the College Road, Dulwich, London SE21 tollgate.

Mythology[link]

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[link]

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.^[2] 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[link]

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. In 14th century England, some of the most heavily used roads were repaired with money raised from tolls by pavage grants.

Turnpikes[link]

19th century toll booth in Kings County, New York

Plaque commemorating the suppression of toll on a York (G-B) bridge in 1914.

Turnpike trusts were established in England from 1706 onwards, and were ultimately responsible for the maintenance and improvement of most main roads in England and Wales, until they were gradually abolished from 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. See also Toll roads in the United Kingdom.

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)^[3] and disappeared after 1895.^[4]

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.^[5][6]

20th Century[link]

In the 20th century, road tolls have been introduced in Europe for financing the construction of motorway networks and specific road infrastructure such as bridges and tunnels. Italy has been 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 to pay for the network of motorways around and between its cities in 1927. Later in the 1950s and 1960s, also 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.^[7]

Charging methods[link]

Road 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.:^[8]

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[link]

ERP gantry at North Bridge Road. Singapore

The open road tolling lanes at the West 163rd Street toll plaza, on the Tri-State Tollway near Hazel Crest, Illinois, United States

Balintawak Toll Barrier, Balintawak, Caloocan, Philippines.

Calamba Toll Barrier, Calamba City, Laguna, Philippines.

Traditionally tolls were paid by hand to at a toll gate. It is more common now for payments may be made in cash, 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.^[9]

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^[10] 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.

E-ZPass lanes at a New Jersey Turnpike (I-95) Toll Gate for Exit 8A in Monroe Township, New Jersey, United States.

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.^[11]

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.^[12] Another all-electronic toll road, the Triangle Parkway, will open at the end of 2011 in North Carolina.^[13]

Financing and management[link]

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. Throughout the world, 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 Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi,^[14] 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.^{[citation needed]}

Criticism[link]

Toll roads have been criticized as being inefficient in various ways:^[15]

1. They require vehicles to stop or slow down, manual toll collection wastes time and raises vehicle operating costs.
2. Collection costs can absorb up to one-third of revenues, and revenue theft is considered to be comparatively easy.
3. 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.
4. By tracking the vehicle locations, their drivers are subject to an effectual restriction of their freedom of movement and freedom from excessive surveillance.

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Toll roads

• 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[link]

Part of a series on Government
Public finance
Policies Economic policy Fiscal policy · Monetary policy Trade policy · Investment policy Agricultural policy · Industrial policy Energy policy · Social policy Policy mix
Fiscal policy Tax policy · Budgetary policy Revenue · Spending · Budget Deficit or Surplus · Deficit spending Debt (External · Internal) Finance ministry · Fiscal union
Monetary policy Money supply · Interest rate Monetary base · Discount window Reserve requirements Bank reserves · Gold reserves Monetary authority (central bank · currency board) · Monetary union
Trade policy Tariff · Non-tariff barrier Balance of trade · Gains from trade Trade creation · Trade diversion Protectionism · Free trade Commerce ministry · Trade bloc
Revenue and Spending Tax revenue · Non-tax revenue Mandatory spending Discretionary spending
Optimum Balanced budget (fiscal) Price stability (monetary) Growth (trade and investment)
Reform Fiscal adjustment · Monetary reform
v t e

External links[link]

• 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
• For a Toll free Democracy, Anti Toll Movement in Kerala, India

Claude Jones and Wilbur De Paris (left) at the Aquarium in New York in 1946

Wilbur de Paris (January 11, 1900 – January 3, 1973) was a trombone player and band leader, especially known for mixing New Orleans jazz style with Swing.^[1]

De Paris was born in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where his father, Sidney G. Paris, who came from West Virginia and who was a musician (trombone, banjo, guitar), a circus barker, a ventriloquist, a minstrel, etc., had met and married his mother, Fannie Hyatt.^{[citation needed]} By the autumn of 1906, when he was five, de Paris had started playing alto saxophone, and a year later was working for his father in one of his plantation shows.

These shows were small travelling theatrical-musical groups of singers, dancers, actors, comedians, and musicians who mainly worked for Theatre Owners and Bookers Association in the South. They performed in small tents and theatres with a mixture of drama, musical and comedy sketches, magic, etc., which would later be incorporated into vaudeville.^{[citation needed]}

De Paris heard jazz first at age 16, circa 1917, as a member of a summer show that played at the Lyric Theatre. He also met Louis Armstrong whilst playing the saxophone at Tom Anderson's Cafe, and with A. J. Piron.^{[citation needed]} After high school, de Paris worked for his father for a time, then worked for more travelling shows in the east, then started playing in Philadelphia in the early 1920s. His first band was Wilbur de Paris and his Cottonpickers. After the Wall Street Crash in 1929 he disbanded his second group and went to New York to play for many years with the greats of jazz and to make records.^{[citation needed]}

In the late 1940s, together with his brother, Sidney De Paris, he started a band called New New Orleans Jazz, featuring legendary jazzmen including the famed Jelly Roll Morton clarinetist Omer Simeon. Other band members included drummers Zutty Singleton & Freddie Moore. The banjo chair was filled first by Eddie Gibbs and later by Lee Blair also of Morton fame. Don Kirkpatrick was the band's most consistent piano player. This band became an institution in New York City during the 1950s and toured the world in the late 1950s. The band recorded extensively.^{[citation needed]}

References[link]

1. ^ Carr, Ian; Digby Fairweather, Brian Priestley (1995). Jazz: The Rough Guide. The Rough Guides. p. 168. ISBN 1-85828-137-7.