Toll (fee)

Fee charged for use of a road 15th century illustration of a toll payment being made to cross a bridge Tolls in the UAE A toll is a fee charged for the use of a road or waterway. History Tolls usually had to be paid at strategic locations such as bridges (sometimes called a bridge toll) or gates. In Europe, the road toll goes back to the practice of the Germanic tribes, who charged fees to travellers if they wanted to cross over mountain passages. From that time, road tolls became commonplace in medieval times, especially in the Holy Roman Empire. 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 which had toll stations at Königsau and Rendsburg, Neumünster, Bramstedt and Ulzburg, as well as the Gabler Road with the Karlsfried Castle as its toll station. Another form of road tax was Liniengeld, which had to be paid when entering the city of Vienna 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 Elect