Electronic toll collection (ETC), an adaptation of military "identification friend or foe" technology, aims to eliminate the delay on toll roads by collecting tolls electronically. ETC determines whether the cars passing are enrolled in the program, alerts enforcers for those that are not, and electronically debits the accounts of registered car owners without requiring them to stop.

In 1959, Nobel Economics Prize winner William Vickrey was the first to propose a system of electronic tolling for the Washington Metropolitan Area. He proposed that each car would be equipped with a transponder. “The transponder’s personalised signal would be picked up when the car passed through an intersection, and then relayed to a central computer which would calculate the charge according to the intersection and the time of day and add it to the car’s bill” Electronic toll collection has facilitated the concession to the private sector of the construction and operation of urban freeways, as well as made feasible the improvement and the practical implementation of road congestion pricing schemes in a limited number of urban areas to restrict auto travel in the most congested areas.