Tolls I've seen in the US appear to work pretty well. On some you pay a very small amount for short distances - say 50 cents for a 2-3 mile stretch - others vary according to time of day. The ones I've seen in California and Texas are all done by tags or ANPR, I tripped a tag zone near Dallas airport after getting lost on an access road and Alamo billed me the princely sum of $3.

One of the mistakes of the M6 Toll is that you can't see what the traffic is like on the non-tolled section. If you build the toll as 'fast lanes' that people can enter or exit every few miles then it's a more calculable choice of time vs money because you can see the congestion.

I remember when we were in up-state New York on a long toll road (I forget what the interstate was called) and it had a list of prices for each turn off and they were only went up in increments of 1 or 2 dollars depending on distance between junctions. I think it would only work here if the toll road was longer than 25 miles, however. For example, if they ever bring the M6 toll extension idea back (they better not but still) then I could see something like that work on that but only if it was sensibly priced.

But, as Lenzar said, if we take the 'popularity' of the M6 toll, we don't exactly take too kindly to toll roads round here, especially if they have such a stupid price as the M6 toll!

I have to say that as a visitor, I found the tolls on the US roads to be really, really annoying. Having to stop every few miles when you cross a county line and fart around finding 50¢ or 75¢ in change (especially when you're not used to the currency). If we did have a cash toll system, the French system of paying once at the end of your motorway journey is much more sensible, and does far less to disrupt traffic.

I can only speak for France, and even then only from distant memories of about 15 years ago, but ...

... around the major cities, the autoroutes are free, it is only in rural areas where they are tolled.
... because you only pay when you leave the péage section, most of the time this is traffic exiting at junctions, so a relatively small volume in each case. Trumpet interchanges are common to allow all traffic to filter through the same toll plaza, which is a more efficient use of space.
... outside the major cities, my experience of autoroutes is that they are generally much quieter than most British motorways.
... I don't honestly remember what happens. Google shows an absolutely mahoosive toll plaza on the A10 (from the sud-ouest towards Paris). Note the relatively small number of lanes used by ouestbound traffic (at the top), where drivers just need to get a ticket, compared with about 27 potential booths for estbound traffic to pay at. Although the road looks exceptionally quiet in the satellite views, I'm sure at other times of day or the week, it gets a lot busier. Also worth noting that this plaza is actually 12 miles from where the toll road officially ends, where land is cheaper and traffic is thinner. There's no way we could have a setup like that on the A14, there just isn't the room.

Last time I did a French toll road, I was in a coach from Calais to Paris. I recall a couple of toll booths and the hold-ups weren't a big problem(unlike Dartford in the early evening).

Dartford seems to be a distinctly inefficient place at times of high traffic flow.

The savvy Brit doing regular trips to France and using the toll roads these days will be sporting one of their electronic tags and sidestepping the peage queues altogether. They're not too dificult to get hold of from http://www.sanef.com/ etc.

The French use a mix of open toll and closed toll systems.

Open toll is the farty booths everywhere system, and is utilised on the A13, A4, etc. No tickets, just pay for certain lengths.

The M6 Toll is an open toll system, by the way.

Closed toll is where you have a ticket and pay on exit. The downside here is junctions are miles apart and queues at tollbooths can be huge. St Arnoult on the A10 has 27 gates for a reason.

Suprise: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-18899506


Norway's got the best method I think of managing road tolling - signs say that you will be billed for using the road by post; cameras take your registration plates, and then you are billed. You can then pay by credit card over the internet, and see a photo of your car going past the tolled area.

They have deals with foreign debt collection agencies so that they are able to enforce collection.

Also, the tolls are very small amounts of money (I think even though I drove hundreds of miles through tunnels, over bridges, in and out of congestion charged cities, I spent less than about ten quid). Whether that effort by the authorities represents value for money is of course another question...!

The A4 is weird its a mixture of both. Used it in a coach when we went from calais to Munich via Strasbourg and Stuttgart for the Champions League Final. Closed toll between Reims and Metz and ruddy open toll between here and Strasbourg. Ruddy annoying being woken up every 30 minutes as the coach stopped to pay.

I get my toll passes from here: https://www.tolltickets.com/default.aspx?lang=en-GB

I find France to be more of a pain as there are toll booths on the main line quite often. In Italy you can go all the way from Milan to Naples on the A1 with only toll booths at the start and end, though some motorways have a couple, such as Milan to Chiasso you pass through 3 IIRC. Of course this does lead to places like Bologna where you have an inner toll motorway and CD lanes for local traffic that is not tolled until the final junction where they join the mainline.

As for the original post, A14 toll, then I head north on the M1 and miss that section out. Even if its just a couple of quid (which I doubt it) you are still going to have to pay for it and unless your a regular user, its jams ahoy. And as for the Dartford, having a Tag saves no time in the jams, unlike a french tag where its a special couple of lanes.

SJ

My experience in South Africa, is that there are plenty of regular, cash-only toll booths on the N3 between Johannesburg and Durban.
Each toll plaza has a set fee, details here:
http://www.n3tc.co.za/index.php?cmd=sm&SubPage_ID=34
Payment is by cash or SA issue bank, credit or garage card only - not foreign cards

The new toll system around Gauteng province will work by ANPR, but it is still undecided, thanks to widespread protests. Trouble is, the roads have been improved, now the provincial government needs to pay for them...

The Swiss and Czech systems are easy, you buy a "vignette", a sticker valid for driving on the motorway network. It's optional, no sticker = back roads only.

signol

And in UK LTD- there's a lot ,Only they're not mentioned as Tolls

Like - VED
Fuel Tax
VAT on tyres/parts etc.
Replacement drivers licence/change of address /lost replacement .

OH- lets not forget the worst one ( unless Sabre members can think of others) - SCP Tax. ). That's a tax on being more concerned about road safety by keeping eyes on road than the heinous crime of not looking at speedo and driving to the limit.

And in UK LTD- there's a lot ,Only they're not mentioned as Tolls

Like - VED
Fuel Tax
VAT on tyres/parts etc.
Replacement drivers licence/change of address /lost replacement .

OH- lets not forget the worst one ( unless Sabre members can think of others) - SCP Tax. ). That's a tax on being more concerned about road safety by keeping eyes on road than the heinous crime of not looking at speedo and driving to the limit.

Currently in the south of France, in fact drove between Cannes and San Remo (just into Italy) and back yesterday. What an absolute nightmare those tolls are. That's a journey of about an hour. There are four separate ones, they come up about every 20 minutes, all for oddball amounts like EUR 2.30 or 2.90, and the toll booths have been completely automated, no manned booths any more. Coins go one-at-a-time into a little vending-machine type slot which is a huge reach from the driving seat. You can tell the machines must have been hit by people trying to get closer, by a bollard just before them which forces you further out and aay. Typical time for EACH vehicle to negotiate the toll booth is 30 seconds upwards, sometimes over 60 seconds. Several of my coins were rejected at various points but you have absolutely no indication it has come back down the rejected slot apart from the fact that I heard it do so from the drivers' window and the "to pay" message (only in French) doesn't step down, although these LCD displays were so dirty and scratched as to be semi-unreadable. If you use paper money the change (eventually) comes down a really inaccessible slot which needs a huge reach - some would be unable to do so. If the vehicle ahead is foreign, as so many were (including one from Ukraine) you can be sunk. There was advanced signage about manned booths, which was a nonsense because every single booth was now unmanned and automatic.

But the worst point is the mixture of their DART-tag like "T" autopay system, for the unmanned-only booths have a random mixture across the toll plaza of "T" only, cash only, and both, coupled with curved lane approaches which mean you cannot quite see which is which. Going across the plaza, left to right, is something like T, Both, Both, T, Cash, Both, T, Cash, Cash, Both ! This seems a complete change to previous practice where the T" lanes were always segregated and always on the left - there are self-congratulatory notices from the toll operator, Vinci, about the recent "upgrade". The amount of people reversing back at each toll plaza to go for a different lane was unbelievable, I've never seen anything like it, eastbound in the morning every toll plaza seemed to have two or more separate vehicles reversing, this including artic HGVs. Quite how this passed any meaningful risk assessment I cannot imagine, although Risk Assessment and France don't really go together, do they ? !!

It's the most spectacular road for engineering and tunnels (there must be 10 or more east of Nice, several over 1km), but the toll system is beyond belief.

Broadband here also pathetic so more next week ! Rental car (new Seat Leon Diesel) the WORST designed car I have ever driven in my LIFE (and as some of you know, I've driven a fair few), on multiple grounds. However, weather, food, beaches and BA flight to Nice great

That's because they are not. Tolls apply to roads. Your list applies to drivers and driving.

is a toll a tax?

If it goes to Government - yes!

The 'merkin Diplomats have refused paying the Congestion Charge since 2003 on the basis of 'it's a tax'...

The congestion charge isn't a toll, though - it's a 'charge' on congestion.

If it truly was a congestion charge as opposed to a green charge, more environmentally friendly vehicles would still have to pay as they take up road space and contribute to congestion.

As it stands I cannot call it a congestion charge happily.