North America Vehicle Tolling System Market- Overview and Study (2015 - 2020)

In most countries in North America toll roads, toll bridges and tunnels are used primarily for revenue generation for repaying the long-term debt issued to finance the toll facility, or to finance the capacity expansion, operations and maintenance of the facility itself. Some of the states simply use these booths as a source for generating general tax funds. Conventionally in North America, tolls were paid manually at a toll gate. Although payments are still made in cash, it is more common to make the payments by credit card, by pre-paid card (tickets and coins) or by an electronic toll collection system. In some places, payment is made using stickers, which are attached to the windscreen. These are all a part of closed tolling system, prevalent commonly in US states like that of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York. Some cities in Canada had toll roads in the 19th century, where the vehicle commuters are charged while driving through. Roads radiating from Toronto required users to pay at toll gates along the street but disappeared after 1895.

As of January 2014, the US states of Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Wyoming had never had any toll roads, while Connecticut, Kentucky, and Georgia have had toll roads in the past, but have removed the tolls on those roads. However, Connecticut, Kentucky, Michigan, Georgia, and Tennessee currently have proposals to construct future toll roads.

In an open toll system, like the mainline barrier toll, the vehicles are required to stop at various locations along the highway to pay the toll. While this saves money from the lack of need to construct toll booths at every exit, it can cause traffic congestion as traffic queues at the mainline toll plazas (toll barriers). However, there are provisions for motorists to enter an 'open toll road' after one toll barrier and exit before the next one, thereby travelling on the toll road toll-free. Most open toll roads have ramp tolls or partial access junctions to prevent the practice, commonly known as shunpiking.

In a closed system, vehicles collect tickets or coins when entering the highway. The tickets are to be paid in the toll on exit. Upon exit, the driver pay the amount listed in the display for the exit. Toll roads, which are short, have no intermediate entries or exits and may have only one toll plaza in one end. Thereby, motorists traveling in either direction pay a flat fee either when they enter or when they exit the toll road. A driver typically pays the maximum amount possible for travel on that highway, if he manages to lose the ticket. As a variant of the entry/exit system, mainline barriers are present at the endpoints of the toll road, and the interchange has a ramp toll that is paid upon exit or entry. In this case, a motorist pays a flat fee at the ramp toll and another flat fee at the end of the toll road, a ticket is not necessary. It can be mainly attributed as a mainline barrier tolling system, with operating mechanism to that of an entry/exit system tolling.

In the United States, for instance, the Kansas Turnpike, Ohio Turnpike, Pennsylvania Turnpike, New Jersey Turnpike most of the Indiana Toll Road, and portions of the Massachusetts Turnpike, New York Thruway, and Florida's Turnpike  implement the closed tolling systems. The Union Toll Plaza on New Jersey was the first ever to use an automated toll collection machine in the region. The first major deployment of an RFID electronic toll collection system in the United States was on the Dallas North Toll way in 1989.  The management in lieu of cutting costs and minimizing time delay are involved in collecting tolls by the form of electronic toll collection equipment which communicates electronically with a toll payer's transponder located in the vehicle. Toll booths are completely avoided in this system but they are required for the users who do not have a transponder. The RFID based electronic toll collection system is expected to generate a significant adoption rate in many states both in US as well as in Canada. They are expected to be the preferred toll collection system in more than 25% of the booths in all the states of the region. The increasing cost of toll collection is favouring the considerable growth of the electronic system of toll system.

 Among the management system, the more traditional means of managing toll roads in the United States is through semi-autonomous public authorities or Governments. They manage nearly 60% of all the booths in US. Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia are some of the common states that manage their toll roads in that manner. However some toll roads especially in Canada are managed under systems as the Build-Operate- Transfer (BOT) system. Private companies build the roads and are given a limited franchise, and the ownership is then transferred to the public authorities after a given time frame with the expiry of the franchisee.

WHAT THE STUDY OFFERS

• Market Definition along with identification of key drivers and restraints for each segments in the market.
• Market analysis with country specific studies and theoretical analysis on the toll collection system in the region
• Identification of factors that has been instrumental in changing the collection system scenarios, prospective opportunities for each system and identification of key factors, which can influence the market.
• Extensively researched regional landscape segment with the market dynamics for each major state in the countries.
• Identification and analysis of the macro and micro factors that affect the growth of the industry in the region.