Editing Toll road (section)

==History==
[[File:Table-of-tolls-College-Road-London-SE21-Tollgate.jpg|thumb|A table of tolls in pre-decimal currency for the [[College Road, Dulwich]], London SE21 tollgate]]
[[File:A toll bar in Roumania, 1877.jpg|thumb|Toll bar in [[United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia|Romania]], 1877]]
[[File:MyanmarCheckpointFee.jpg|thumb|Entrance fees collection in a local community road checkpoint near [[Bagan]] ([[Myanmar]])]]

===Ancient times===
Toll roads have existed for at least the last 2,700 years, as tolls had to be paid by travellers using the [[Susa]]–[[Babylon]] highway under the regime of [[Ashurbanipal]], who reigned in the seventh century BC.<ref>Gilliet, Henri (1990). "Toll roads-the French experience." Transrouts International, Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.</ref>

[[Aristotle]] and [[Pliny the Elder|Pliny]] refer to tolls in Arabia and other parts of Asia. In India, before the fourth century BC, the [[Arthashastra]] notes the use of tolls. Germanic tribes charged tolls to travellers across [[mountain pass]]es.

===Middle Ages===
{{main|Road toll (historic)}}
Most roads were not freely open to travel on in Europe during the Middle Ages,<ref>{{cite web |title=Toll |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/toll |website=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=October 6, 2020}}</ref> and the [[Road toll (historical)|toll]] was one of many [[Feudalism|feudal]] [[fee]]s paid for rights of usage in everyday life. Some major European "highways", such as the [[Via Regia]] and [[Via Imperii]], offered [[Geleitrecht|protection]] to travelers in exchange for paying the royal toll.

Many modern European roads were originally constructed as toll roads in order to recoup the costs of construction and maintenance, and to generate revenue from passing travelers. In 14th-century England, some of the most heavily used roads were repaired with money raised from tolls by [[pavage]] grants. Widespread toll roads sometimes restricted traffic so much, by their high tolls, that they interfered with trade and cheap transportation needed to alleviate local famines or shortages.<ref>Bernstein, William J.; "The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created"; p. 245-6; McGraw-Hill (2010); {{ISBN|978-0071747042}}</ref>

Tolls were used in the [[Holy Roman Empire]] in the 14th and 15th centuries.

===17th-century Dahomey===
After significant road construction undertaken by the [[West African]] kingdom of [[Dahomey]], toll booths were also established with the function of collecting yearly taxes based on the goods carried by the people of Dahomey and their occupation. In some cases, officials imposed fines for public nuisance before allowing people to pass.<ref name="Herskovits (Vol. I)">{{cite book|last=Herskovits|first=Melville J.|title=Dahomey: An Ancient West African Kingdom|year=1967|publisher=Northwestern University Press|location=Evanston, IL|edition=Volume I}}</ref>

===19th century===
Industrialisation in Europe needed major improvements to the transport infrastructure which included many new or substantially improved roads, financed from tolls. The [[A5 road (Great Britain)|A5 road]] in Britain was built to provide a robust transport link between Britain and Ireland and had a toll house every few miles.

===20th century===
In the 20th century, road tolls were introduced in Europe to finance the construction of motorway networks and specific transport infrastructure such as bridges and tunnels. 
[[File:Milano, Autostrada Milano-Laghi, casello 01.jpg|thumb|right|Toll gate of the ''[[Autostrada dei Laghi]]'' ("Lakes Motorway"), the first [[motorway]] built in the world,<ref name="independent"/><ref name="motorwebmuseum"/> in [[Milan]], [[Kingdom of Italy|Italy]], in 1924]]

Italy was the first country in the world to build [[motorway]]s reserved for fast traffic and for motor vehicles only.<ref name=independent>{{Cite news |first=Thea |last=Lenarduzzi |url=http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/europe/the-worlds-first-motorway-piero-puricellis-masterpiece-is-the-focus-of-an-unlikely-pilgrimage-a6840816.html|title=The motorway that built Italy: Piero Puricelli's masterpiece|date=30 January 2016|newspaper=[[The Independent]]|access-date=12 May 2022}}</ref><ref name="motorwebmuseum">{{cite web|url=https://www.motorwebmuseum.it/en/places/varese/the-milano-laghi-by-piero-puricelli-the-first-motorway-in-the-world/|title=The "Milano-Laghi" by Piero Puricelli, the first motorway in the world|access-date=10 May 2022}}</ref> The ''[[Autostrada dei Laghi]]'' ("Lakes Motorway"), the first built in the world, connecting [[Milan]] to [[Lake Como]] and [[Lake Maggiore]], and now parts of the [[Autostrada A8 (Italy)|Autostrada A8]] and [[Autostrada A9 (Italy)|Autostrada A9]], was devised by [[Piero Puricelli]] and was inaugurated in 1924.<ref name="motorwebmuseum"/> Piero Puricelli, a civil engineer and entrepreneur, received the first authorization to build a public-utility fast road in 1921, and completed the construction (one lane in each direction) between 1924 and 1926. Piero Puricelli decided to cover the expenses by introducing a toll.<ref>{{cite web |url = http://local.aaca.org/bntc/mileposts/1924.htm |title = 1924 Mile Posts |access-date = 3 April 2006 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080312014538/http://local.aaca.org/bntc/mileposts/1924.htm|archive-date = 12 March 2008 }}</ref>

It was followed by Greece, which made users pay for the network of motorways around and between its cities in 1927. Later in the 1950s and 1960s, France, Spain, and Portugal started to build motorways largely with the aid of concessions, allowing rapid development of this infrastructure without massive state debts. Since then, road tolls have been introduced in the majority of the [[European Union|EU]] member states.<ref>Jordi, Philipp (2008): "Institutional Aspects of Directive 2004/52/EC on the Interoperability of Electronic Road Toll Systems in the Community." Europainstitut der Universität Basel.</ref>
[[File:America's Highways 1776–1976 - page 151.jpg|thumb|right|The Pennsylvania Turnpike opened as the first long-distance, controlled-access toll road in the United States in 1940]]

In the United States, prior to the introduction of the [[Interstate Highway System]] and the large federal grants supplied to states to build it, many states constructed their first [[controlled-access highway|freeways]] by floating [[Bond (finance)|bonds]] backed by toll revenues. The first major fully grade separated toll road was the [[Pennsylvania Turnpike]] in 1940. This was followed up by other toll roads, such as the [[Maine Turnpike]] in 1947, the  [[Blue Star Turnpike]] in 1950, the [[New Jersey Turnpike]] in 1951, the [[Garden State Parkway]] in 1952, the [[West Virginia Turnpike]] and [[New York State Thruway]] in 1954, the [[Massachusetts Turnpike]] in 1957, and the [[Chicago Skyway]] and [[Indiana Toll Road]] in 1958. Other toll roads were also established around this time. With the establishment of the Interstate Highway System in the late 1950s, toll road construction in the U.S. slowed down considerably, as the federal government now provided the bulk of funding to construct new freeways, and regulations required that such Interstate highways be free from tolls. Many older toll roads were added to the Interstate System under a [[grandfather clause]] that allowed tolls to continue to be collected on toll roads that predated the system. Some of these such as the [[Connecticut Turnpike]] and the [[Richmond–Petersburg Turnpike]] later removed their tolls when the initial bonds were paid off. Many states, however, have maintained the tolling of these roads as a consistent source of revenue.

As the Interstate Highway System approached completion during the 1980s, states began constructing toll roads again to provide new freeways which were not part of the original interstate system funding. [[Texas State Highway Beltway 8|Houston's outer beltway]] of interconnected toll roads began in 1983, and many states followed over the last two decades of the 20th century adding new toll roads, including the [[Central Florida Expressway Authority|tollway system around Orlando, Florida]], Colorado's [[E-470]], and [[Georgia State Route 400]].

===21st century===
[[File:SR 417 University Toll Plaza.jpg|thumb|right|Collecting tolls on [[Florida State Road 417|SR 417]] near [[Orlando, Florida]], United States. This shows the two common methods of collection of tolls: [[tollbooth]] (on right) and [[electronic toll collection]] (on left).]]
London, in an effort to reduce traffic within the city, instituted the [[London congestion charge]] in 2003, effectively making all roads within the centre of the city tolled.
[[File:Salik's Al Garhoud Bridge Toll Gate.jpg|thumb|Tolls in the UAE]]
In the United States, as states looked for ways to construct new freeways without federal funding again, to raise revenue for continued road maintenance, and to control congestion, new toll road construction saw significant increases during the first two decades of the 21st century. Spurred on by two innovations, the [[electronic toll collection]] system, and the advent of [[High-occupancy toll lane|high-occupancy and express lane toll]]s, many areas of the U.S. saw large road building projects in major urban areas. Electronic toll collection, first introduced in the 1980s, reduces operating costs by removing toll collectors from roads. Tolled express lanes, by which certain lanes of a freeway are designated "toll only", increases revenue by allowing a free-to-use highway to collect revenue by allowing drivers to bypass traffic jams by paying a toll.

The [[E-ZPass]] system, compatible with many state systems, is the largest ETC system in the U.S., and is used for both fully tolled highways and tolled express lanes. [[Maryland Route 200]] and the [[Triangle Expressway]] in North Carolina were the first toll roads built without toll booths, with drivers charged via ETC or by optical license plate recognition and are billed by mail.  In addition, many older toll roads are also being upgraded to an all-electronic tolling system, abandoning the hybrid systems they adopted during the late 20th century.  These include the [[Massachusetts Turnpike]], one of the oldest American toll roads, which went all-electronic in 2016, and the [[Pennsylvania Turnpike]], America's oldest toll freeway, which went all-electronic in 2020, along with the [[Illinois Tollway]], which both accelerated their transitions to such due to the [[COVID-19 pandemic]].
[[File:Lefferts toll booth snow jeh.JPG|thumb|19th-century toll booth in [[History of Brooklyn|Brooklyn, New York]]]]