Toll Roads and Turnpikes
Toll road or a turnpike is a communal or privately owned road for which a charge is made for access (Yang, 310). It is a system of highway charging instigated to aid recover the expense of highway construction and conservation. Economists established that when a commodity that is scarce is considered cheap, this leads to the demand of the product outdoing the supply, resulting in scarcities. This occurrence is seen in the transport industry.
History of Turnpikes
When the number of cars on the road surpass the road's volume, then traffic overflow develops. During the colonial period, turnpikes were the phrase used to refer to tolled roads which meant users had to pay for using this system (Ferrari, 473). This system was to help improve transportation between states. However, there was an increase in the federal funding of the roads which lead to the tolls being banned in 1921. After many years of banned toll systems, a new era of toll roads began with some tolls being privatized and others owned by the government.
Use of Toll Highways
Toll highways, toll links, and toll underpasses are used by public administrations to generate resources to reimburse the price of constructing the structures. Other tolls are put aside to repay for imminent conservation or development of infrastructure and are used as a probable reserve by local administrations, not being allocated for transportation services. This is occasionally restricted or prescribed by central administration legislature (Yang, 312). Similarly, road jamming pricing arrangements have been instigated in many metropolitan regions as a transference demand organization apparatus to attempt to moderate road traffic overflow and air contamination.
Pricing Systems for Toll Roads
Figure 1: Electronic toll system
To have good pricing system, certain economic principles are used; marginal-cost charging policy, the law states that road operators who use jammed roads must pay a fee equivalent to the variance between the minimal-public cost and the minimal-private price in so that to exploit the public leftover. In so doing, every operator will confront the minimal federal charge of road usage and an additional minimum private prices.
Figure 2: Congestion pricing
Importance of Toll Roads
Toll roads are necessary so states can raise revenue for the repair and upgrade of the very same roads. States must balance their revenue sources, and one way to do that is to collect tolls from highways and major bridges. New York City takes in billions of dollars in revenue every year from bridge and tunnel tolls that have become a regular way of life in America's largest city. Revenue from the fees goes towards the road itself, both for repairs and for adding lanes. Transportation used to be a trademark for America. With many highways in dire need of repairs, more states should have toll roads to collect money for highway projects.
Debate around Toll Roads
With private roads, it's necessary to maintain the road and make a profit for the owners of it, without tolls the service wouldn't be provided. It's also a fairer system as those who use the service pay, rather than having all taxpayers put into it, even if they don't own a car or ever use the roads. However, this system has also been faced by criticism people arguing that if they are maintained or controlled by private bodies; the inhabitants might incur losses generally compared to conservative community subsidy since the clandestine operatives of the toll structure will logically pursue to gain from the roads (Liyanage, 150). The management entities might not appropriately justify for the general communal charges, mainly to the deprived, when allocating costs and therefore might upset the poorest sections of humanity.
Benefit to Rail Sector
The rail sector has benefited from the toll roads. Most passengers prefer traveling by rail due to subsidized prices. The forecasted goals that are to happen in this sector is promotion of economic activity, enhancement of local and national mobility for the transportation of goods and people improvement of trade and foreign earnings promotion and support of infrastructure development, creation of employment opportunities , improved road safety and reduced vehicle maintenance cost for road users(Ferrari 472).
Works Cited
Ferrari, Paolo. "Road network toll pricing and social welfare." Transportation Research Part B: Methodological 36.5 (2002): 471-483.
Liyanage, C., " Villalba-Romero, F. (2015). Measuring success of PPP transport projects: a cross-case analysis of toll roads. Transport reviews, 35(2), 140-161.
Yang, Hai, and Michael GH Bell. "Traffic restraint, road pricing and network equilibrium." Transportation Research Part B: Methodological 31.4 (1997): 303-314.
