Toll road
A toll road, also known as a tollway, or a turnpike or pike is a public or private road for which a fee is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically implemented to help recoup the costs of road construction and maintenance.
Toll roads have existed in some form since antiquity, with tolls levied on passing travelers on foot, wagon, or horseback; a practice that continued with the automobile, and many modern tollways charge fees for motor vehicles exclusively. The amount of the toll usually varies by vehicle type, weight, or number of axles, with freight trucks often charged higher rates than cars.
Tolls are often collected at toll plazas, toll booths, toll houses, toll stations, toll bars, toll barriers, or toll gates. Some toll collection points are automatic, and the user deposits money in a machine which opens the gate once the correct toll has been paid. To cut costs and minimise time delay, many tolls are collected with electronic toll collection equipment which automatically communicates with a toll payer's transponder or uses automatic number-plate recognition to charge drivers by debiting their accounts.
Criticisms of toll roads include the time taken to stop and pay the toll, and the cost of the toll booth operators—up to about one-third of revenue in some cases. Automated toll-paying systems help minimise both of these. Others object to paying "twice" for the same road, namely in fuel taxes and in tolls.
In addition to toll roads, toll bridges and toll tunnels are also used by public authorities to generate funds to repay the cost of building the structures. Some tolls are set aside to pay for future maintenance or enhancement of infrastructure, or are applied as a general fund by local governments, not being earmarked for transport facilities. This is sometimes 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 to try to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution.
History
Ancient times
Toll roads have existed for at least the last 2,700 years, 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 fourth century BC, the Arthashastra notes the use of tolls. Germanic tribes charged tolls to travellers across mountain passes.
Roman roads
s were generally untolled and publicly funded.Middle Ages
Most roads were not freely open to travel on in Europe during the Middle Ages, and the toll was one of many feudal fees paid for rights of usage in everyday life. Some major European "highways", such as the Via Regia and Via Imperii, offered protection to travelers in exchange for paying the royal toll.Many modern European roads were originally constructed as toll roads in order to recoup the costs of construction and maintenance, and to generate revenue from passing travelers. In 14th-century England, some of the most heavily used roads were repaired with money raised from tolls by pavage grants. Widespread 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.
Tolls were used in the Holy Roman Empire in the 14th and 15th centuries.
17th-century Dahomey
After significant road construction undertaken by the West African kingdom of Dahomey, toll booths were also established with the function of collecting yearly taxes based on the goods carried by the people of Dahomey and their occupation. In some cases, officials imposed fines for public nuisance before allowing people to pass.19th century
Industrialisation in Europe needed major improvements to the transport infrastructure which included many new or substantially improved roads, financed from tolls. The A5 road in Britain was built to provide a robust transport link between Britain and Ireland and had a toll house every few miles.20th century
In the 20th century, road tolls were introduced in Europe to finance the construction of motorway networks and specific transport infrastructure such as bridges and tunnels.File:Milano, Autostrada Milano-Laghi, casello 01.jpg|thumb|right|Toll gate of the Autostrada dei Laghi, the first motorway built in the world, in Milan, Italy, in 1924
Italy was the first country in the world to build motorways reserved for fast traffic and for motor vehicles only. The Autostrada dei Laghi, the first built in the world, connecting Milan to Lake Como and Lake Maggiore, and now parts of the Autostrada A8 and Autostrada A9, was devised by Piero Puricelli and was inaugurated in 1924. Piero Puricelli, a civil engineer and entrepreneur, received the first authorization to build a public-utility fast road in 1921, and completed the construction between 1924 and 1926. Piero Puricelli decided to cover the expenses by introducing a toll.
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.
In the United States, prior to the introduction of the Interstate Highway System and the large federal grants supplied to states to build it, many states constructed their first freeways by floating bonds backed by toll revenues. The first major fully grade separated toll road was the Pennsylvania Turnpike in 1940. This was followed up by other toll roads, such as the Maine Turnpike in 1947, the Blue Star Turnpike in 1950, the New Jersey Turnpike in 1951, the Garden State Parkway in 1952, the West Virginia Turnpike and New York State Thruway in 1954, the Massachusetts Turnpike in 1957, and the Chicago Skyway and Indiana Toll Road in 1958. Other toll roads were also established around this time. With the establishment of the Interstate Highway System in the late 1950s, toll road construction in the U.S. slowed down considerably, as the federal government now provided the bulk of funding to construct new freeways, and regulations required that such Interstate highways be free from tolls. Many older toll roads were added to the Interstate System under a grandfather clause that allowed tolls to continue to be collected on toll roads that predated the system. Some of these such as the Connecticut Turnpike and the Richmond–Petersburg Turnpike later removed their tolls when the initial bonds were paid off. Many states, however, have maintained the tolling of these roads as a consistent source of revenue.
As the Interstate Highway System approached completion during the 1980s, states began constructing toll roads again to provide new freeways which were not part of the original interstate system funding. Houston's outer beltway of interconnected toll roads began in 1983, and many states followed over the last two decades of the 20th century adding new toll roads, including the tollway system around Orlando, Florida, Colorado's E-470, and Georgia State Route 400.
21st century
London, in an effort to reduce traffic within the city, instituted the London congestion charge in 2003, effectively making all roads within the centre of the city tolled.In the United States, as states looked for ways to construct new freeways without federal funding again, to raise revenue for continued road maintenance, and to control congestion, new toll road construction saw significant increases during the first two decades of the 21st century. Spurred on by two innovations, the electronic toll collection system, and the advent of high-occupancy and express lane tolls, many areas of the U.S. saw large road building projects in major urban areas. Electronic toll collection, first introduced in the 1980s, reduces operating costs by removing toll collectors from roads. Tolled express lanes, by which certain lanes of a freeway are designated "toll only", increases revenue by allowing a free-to-use highway to collect revenue by allowing drivers to bypass traffic jams by paying a toll.
The E-ZPass system, compatible with many state systems, is the largest ETC system in the U.S., and is used for both fully tolled highways and tolled express lanes. Maryland Route 200 and the Triangle Expressway in North Carolina were the first toll roads built without toll booths, with drivers charged via ETC or by optical license plate recognition and are billed by mail. In addition, many older toll roads are also being upgraded to an all-electronic tolling system, abandoning the hybrid systems they adopted during the late 20th century. These include the Massachusetts Turnpike, one of the oldest American toll roads, which went all-electronic in 2016, and the Pennsylvania Turnpike, America's oldest toll freeway, which went all-electronic in 2020, along with the Illinois Tollway, which both accelerated their transitions to such due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
By country
Toll roads in Australia
The first free-flow tolling was constructed in Melbourne with CityLink in 1999. Since then, toll roads have been constructed in most Australian cities with Sydney having the largest amount of toll roads, the most recent projects being WestConnex and NorthConnex. Most toll roads are operated by Transurban.Toll roads in the United Kingdom
s were established in England and Wales from 1663 in response to the need for better roads than the few and poorly maintained tracks then available. Turnpike trusts were set up by individual acts of Parliament, with powers to collect road tolls to repay loans for building, improving, and maintaining the principal roads in Britain. At their peak, in the 1830s, over 1,000 trusts administered around 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 were used to distribute agricultural and industrial goods economically. The tolls were a source of revenue for road building and maintenance, paid for by road users and not from general taxation. The turnpike trusts were gradually abolished from the 1870s. Most trusts improved existing roads, but some new roads, usually only short stretches, were also built. Thomas Telford's Holyhead road followed Watling Street from London but was exceptional in creating a largely new route beyond Shrewsbury, and especially beyond Llangollen. Built in the early 19th century, with many toll booths along its length, most of it is now the A5. In the modern day, one major toll road is the M6 Toll, relieving traffic congestion on the M6 in Birmingham. A few notable bridges and tunnels continue as toll roads including the Dartford Crossing and Mersey Gateway bridge.