Oh! Here Comes the Toll Road

Toll booth
Flickr
No matter where you go, there they are! I can not even remember a single road trip where I have not paid toll tax. 

Well, toll roads are common all over the world and the concept is not just few years old. They are privately or publicly built roads for which the user of the road pays a toll tax for the cost of the road construction and the maintenance without burdening non-users of the road. 

Did you know that toll roads are 2700 years old? In India, the Arthasastra notes the use of tolls before the 4th century BC. Under the regime of Ashurbanipal, travelers paid toll taxes for using Susa–Babylon highway. Few Germanic tribes used to charge toll from travelers across mountain passes. Tolls were also used in Roman empire in 14th and 15th century.

Here is another interesting fact that toll taxes were also charged for the use of river as well. In 14th century, Castle Loevestein in the Netherlands, was built at a strategic point where two rivers met, and charged toll on the boats sailing along the river.

With all due respect to the history of toll tax, I hope it can be eliminated specially where it leads to long traffic queues to save time and gas.

Did you like this trivia about Toll roads?

17 comments:

  1. Talking about toll taxes...with days passing...only thing i see decreasing is distance of toll tax road from one another...forget about these taxes being eliminated...It was a nice informative post.

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    1. Indeed, that's true and shame as well. Well, we can only hope so....

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  2. Interesting facts.... in India there is a tax for everything! :)

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    1. Thanks Bushra, yes, tax for every thing.. very unfortunate..

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  3. Interesting trivia... and the photo is fabulous! :-)

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  4. It was very inteesting indeed. What I didnt know was that there were river tolls as well.

    You have raise a valid point about saving gas and petrol, but toll tax is inevitable as more BOT and BOOT models are coming into picture. As PPP models are adopted private players have to even out the investments done on building roads and then they transfer it to the government.

    Taxes are for better services, who wouldn't like a smooth road to drive on?
    :)

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    1. Everyone loves smooth road, but why would someone want to wait for long when he is paying too? Example, en route to Jaipur from Delhi, one spends atleast 30 - 45 minutes in total at three toll plazas. Manesar being the worst. How can it be fair?

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    2. Yes that is also a valid point, may be govt. should try integerating IT with toll collection! may be the vehicles that pass through that toll, their number should recorded and later through online method or like we pay various bills, we could pay those toll taxes!! :)

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    3. That's an interesting idea.... but that will limit the reach to only those who have online access, not the truck owners and other small vendors. But yes, something must be done to ease the chaos.

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  5. Interesting Toll Trivia.
    (And that's a great picture, btw)

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    1. Thank you so much :) Thanks for your visit.

      Cheers!

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  6. Yeah..waiting at the toll can be frustrating at times, when there's a long que or even worse, when there's heavy rainfall. But most of this experience is in India. Outside India, I've passed through toll without any hassle.

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  7. Lovely capture!

    The toll booths indeed take their toll on our time and wallets!!

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