Paying Toll on passing a Bridge From a Painted Window in the Cathedral of Tournay Fifteenth Century

A toll is a

fee A fee is the price one pays as remuneration for rights or services. Fees usually allow for overhead, wages, costs, and markup. Traditionally, professionals in the United Kingdom (and previously the Republic of Ireland) receive a fee in contra ...

charged for the use of a

road A road is a linear way for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, the main function of roads is transportation. There are many types of ...

waterway A waterway is any navigable body of water. Broad distinctions are useful to avoid ambiguity, and disambiguation will be of varying importance depending on the nuance of the equivalent word in other languages. A first distinction is necessary b ...

History

Tolls usually had to be paid at strategic locations such as

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

s (sometimes called a bridge toll) or

gate A gate or gateway is a point of entry to or from a space enclosed by walls. The word derived from old Norse "gat" meaning road or path; But other terms include ''yett and port''. The concept originally referred to the gap or hole in the wall ...

s. In

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, the road toll goes back to the practice of the

Germanic tribes The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people that once occupied Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Since the 19th century, they have traditionally been defined by the use of ancient and ear ...

, who charged fees to travellers if they wanted to cross over mountain passages. From that time, road tolls became commonplace in

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

times, especially in the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a Polity, political entity in Western Europe, Western, Central Europe, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution i ...

. The Empire had a "passage system" whereby a number of toll stations would be established on a route where small tolls were collected. Examples were the Ochsenweg in

Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein (; da, Slesvig-Holsten; nds, Sleswig-Holsteen; frr, Slaswik-Holstiinj) is the northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Sch ...

which had toll stations at

Königsau Königsau is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Kreuznach district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Kirner Land, whose ...

and

Rendsburg Rendsburg ( da, Rendsborg, also ''Rensborg'', nds, Rendsborg, also ''Rensborg'') is a town on the River Eider and the Kiel Canal in the central part of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is the capital of the ''Kreis'' (district) of Rendsburg-Ecke ...

Neumünster Neumünster () is a city in the middle of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. With more than 79,000 registered inhabitants, it is the fourth-largest municipality in Schleswig-Holstein (behind Kiel, Lübeck and Flensburg). History The city was fi ...

Bramstedt Bramstedt is a village and a former municipality in the district of Cuxhaven, in Lower Saxony, Germany. Since 1 January 2014, it is part of the municipality Hagen im Bremischen. Bramstedt belonged to the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen. In 1648 ...

and

Ulzburg Henstedt-Ulzburg is a municipality in the district of Segeberg, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Geography The municipality of Henstedt-Ulzburg is situated approximately 30 km north of Hamburg and 13 km north of Norderstedt. Currently ...

,Klaus-Joachim Lorenzen-Schmidt, Ortwin Pelc (ed.): ''Das neue Schleswig-Holstein Lexikon.'' Wachholtz, Neumünster, 2006, Lemma Zoll. as well as the

Gabler Road Gabler (or Gäbler) is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Christoph August Gabler (1767–1839), German composer * Frank Gabler (1911–1967), American baseball player * Fritz Gäbler (1897–1974), German politician * Gabe Gabler ...

with the Karlsfried Castle as its toll station. Another form of road tax was ''

Liniengeld The ''Liniengeld'' was a historic road toll that had to be paid on entering the city of Vienna in Austria from the 18th century. Term The ''Linienwall'' ("line(s) rampart") was built in the early 18th century as a simple fortification line arou ...

'', which had to be paid when entering the city of

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

from the beginning of the 18th century. A special form of road toll was the '' Pflasterzoll'', which had to be paid to fund the initial cobbling of a road and its subsequent upkeep.

Electronic collection

Electronic toll collection is a wireless system to automatically collect the usage fee or toll charged to vehicles using

toll road A toll road, also known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private road (almost always a controlled-access highway in the present day) for which a fee (or ''toll'') is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically implemented ...

HOV lane A high-occupancy vehicle lane (also known as an HOV lane, carpool lane, diamond lane, 2+ lane, and transit lane or T2 or T3 lanes) is a restricted traffic lane reserved for the exclusive use of vehicles with a driver and one or more passengers, i ...

toll bridge A toll bridge is a bridge where a monetary charge (or ''toll'') is required to pass over. Generally the private or public owner, builder and maintainer of the bridge uses the toll to recoup their investment, in much the same way as a toll road. ...

s, and

toll tunnel A toll tunnel is a road tunnel where a monetary charge (or ''toll'') is required to pass through. List of toll tunnels United States Alaska Maryland Massachusetts Michigan / Ontario, Canada New Jersey / New York New York Texas V ...

s. It is a faster alternative which is replacing toll booths, where vehicles must stop and the driver manually pays the toll with cash or a card. In most systems, vehicles using the system are equipped with an automated radio

transponder In telecommunications, a transponder is a device that, upon receiving a signal, emits a different signal in response. The term is a blend word, blend of ''transmitter'' and ''responder''. In air navigation or radio frequency identification, a T ...

device. When the vehicle passes a roadside toll reader device, a

radio signal Radio waves are a type of electromagnetic radiation with the longest wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum, typically with frequencies of 300 gigahertz (GHz) and below. At 300 GHz, the corresponding wavelength is 1 mm (shor ...

from the reader triggers the transponder, which transmits back an identifying number which registers the vehicle's use of the road, and an

electronic payment system An e-commerce payment system (or an electronic payment system) facilitates the acceptance of electronic payment for offline transfer, also known as a subcomponent of electronic data interchange (EDI), e-commerce payment systems have become increa ...

charges the user the toll. A major advantage is the driver does not have to stop, reducing traffic delays. Electronic tolling is cheaper than a staffed toll booth, reducing transaction costs for government or private road owners. The ease of varying the amount of the toll makes it easy to implement

road congestion pricing Congestion pricing or congestion charges is a system of surcharging users of public goods that are subject to congestion through excess demand, such as through higher peak charges for use of bus services, electricity, metros, railways, tele ...

, including for high-occupancy lanes, toll lanes that bypass congestion, and city-wide congestion charges. The payment system usually requires users to sign up in advance and load money into a declining-balance account, which is debited each time they pass a toll point.

References

Bibliography

* (See Chapter 9: Optimizing Traffic Congestion) * * * (See Chapter 4: Pricing) * * *

History

Electronic collection

References

Bibliography

See also