Toll Road - Collection Methods

Collection Methods

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.

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 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.

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.

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. The first section of another all-electronic toll road, the Triangle Expressway, opened at the beginning of 2012 in North Carolina.