Atoll road (also called aturnpike,toll highway, orexpress toll route) is aroad for whichvehicles must pay afee to use, called a "toll". Toll roads are there in part to control the number of people using it. They may be built to allow some users to travel faster and avoidtraffic congestion, speeding up traffic. In the past, tolls were collected to giveincome togovernments orlandowners. Today, tolls can be considered a form oftax which pays for the cost ofroad construction andmaintenance that are not charged on those who do not use that road.
There are many types of toll roads. Tolls might be charged to use abridge,tunnel, orhighway. On some roads, the amount ofmoney you pay depends on how far along the road you go, and/or whether you are driving acar,motorcycle,bus, ortruck. On other roads, you pay the same amount no matter how far you go or what you drive.
There are also many ways tolls can be collected. In the first toll roads, you had to stop at abooth along the road and pay the toll to a person, called a "collector". Depending on the road, you might have to do so when you get on, when you get off, or both. Because many vehicles may be waiting to pay the toll, the area around "toll plazas", which are a bunch of booths blocking the whole road, can be crowded. Recently, there are roads that have "electronic toll collection", which makes use ofcomputer chips andRFID technology to identify drivers and charge their tolls on theirbank accounts.
Tolls might be collected by vehicles traveling on one or morelanes of a road which is otherwisefree to use. These lanes are often called "high occupancy toll lanes" because in most cases, vehicles with more than one person do not have to pay to use the lane. These lanes are there to encouragecarpooling. If there are fewer cars on the road, more people can get to where they want to go without getting stuck in traffic.
All roads have to be paid for somehow, and so are never truly "free". Road construction costs may be paid for by thetaxes ongasoline,diesel, or otherfuel. Users of toll roads still pay these taxesand the tolls for using this particular road or lane.
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Tolls are mentioned inGreek mythology whereCharon the ferryman charged a toll to carry the dead across the riversAcheron andStyx toHades. If the soul paid a toll, Charon ferried it across the river. If not, it wandered between death and life foreternity.
Toll roads are at least 2700 years old, as tolls had to be paid by travellers using theSusa–Babylon highway under the regime ofAshurbanipal, in the7th century BC.[1]Aristotle andPliny refer to tolls inArabia and other parts ofAsia. InIndia, before the4th century BC, theArthasastra notes the use of tolls. Germanic tribes charged tolls to travellers acrossmountain passes.
Investor's bonds may be sold to those who are paying for the road to be built, and it is expected that they will be paid back over time by charging tolls. Once the bonds are paid off, the road is usually given back to the government agency that owns the land it was built on and had allowed the road to be built.
The need to build better roads than the existing ones was a reason for turnpikes. Turnpike trusts started in England and Wales from about 1706. They were set up by individualActs of Parliament, with powers to collect road tolls. At the peak, in the 1830s, over 1,000 trusts had about 30,000 miles (48,000 km) of turnpike road in England and Wales. They had almost 8,000 toll-gates.[2] The trusts were responsible for keeping and improving most main roads in England andWales. This helped distributeagriculture and industrial goods and kept prices low. The Turnpike trusts were gradually abolished starting in the 1870s. Most trusts improved existing roads, but some new ones, usually only short stretches of road, were also built.Thomas Telford'sHolyhead road (now theA5 road) is exceptional: it was a long new road, built in the early 19th century with many toll booths along its length.[3]