Atoll is afee charged for the use of a road or waterway.
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 theGermanic tribes, who charged fees to travellers if they wanted to cross over mountain passages. From that time, road tolls became commonplace inmedieval times, especially in theHoly 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 theOchsenweg in Schleswig-Holstein which had toll stations atKönigsau andRendsburg,Neumünster,Bramstedt andUlzburg,[1] as well as theGabler Road with theKarlsfried Castle as its toll station. Another form of road tax wasLiniengeld, which had to be paid when entering the city ofVienna from the beginning of the 18th century.
A special form of road toll was thePflasterzoll, which had to be paid to fund the initial cobbling of a road and its subsequent upkeep.
Electronic toll collection is a wireless system to automatically collect the usage fee or toll charged to vehicles usingtoll roads,HOV lanes,toll bridges, andtoll tunnels. It is a faster alternative totoll 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 radiotransponder device. When the vehicle passes a roadside toll reader device, aradio signal from the reader triggers the transponder, which transmits back an identifying number which registers the vehicle's use of the road, and anelectronic payment system 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 implementroad congestion pricing, including forhigh-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.
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