Its quite unfortunate that whenever you pass through a tollbooth you have to slowdown to 5-15mph, why not create wider lanes and allow for hi-speed tollbooth, so you could speed through it at speed of 65 mph. That would ease traffic, and most importantly save time.-- romanmar, Oct 17 2003 Hi-Speed Tollbooths ~bz [bristolz, Sep 05 2005] FasTrack™ system http://www.dot.ca.gov/fastrak/ [X2Entendre, Oct 04 2004] (?) Tongue Twisters http://www.geocitie...tonguetwisters.html [Dub, Sep 05 2005] toll collect http://www.toll-collect.deVery similar to your idea. Has been rolled out for the German motorway network [kinemojo, Sep 05 2005] A sign only tells you which lane to take, due to speed limits at tollbooths, at least one person will slow down which will create a domino effect slowing everybody else in behind her, basically creating an artificial bottleneck. Also when three lanes come to the tollbooth area, they are spread out into 6 lanes, and then merged back into 3 lanes, most merging of lanes would slow down traffic. if you consistently keep the same speed, the tollbooth would have no effect on traffic whatsoever.-- romanmar, Oct 17 2003 Even better would be if you were too slow approaching the toll booth a gigantic laser cannon blows the slowpoke off the highway. Then a huge vacuum sucks the debris off the roadway. Thinning out the herd, survival of the fittest, yadda yadda yadda.-- Blind Lemon, Oct 17 2003 As I understand it, the low speed and narrowess of the electronic payment lane are _intended_ to slow drivers down, so that you do not run over toll booth employees who are walking between sides or inspecting lane equipment. Traveling at 5-15mph, you will have time to stop before hitting, or at least hit without killing a pedestrian.
Highspeed tollplaza equipment is used in places where the concrete has been placed in a way that keeps everyone safe. Purpose built highspeed lanes are common around Chicago.-- Laughs Last, Oct 17 2003 What's the proximate range on those things? If it was strong enough, and the read-up was fast enough, it seems you could do away with the toll booths altogether and just have the readers mounted on signs over the road.-- waugsqueke, Oct 17 2003 somewhat baked... electronic transponders are commonly used to pay tolls in my area... (see link)-- X2Entendre, Oct 17 2003 [Laughs Last] It would be much safer, regardless of whether or not this idea were implemented, if toll booths were connected (they generally have roofs over the plaza anyway, at least in my area). A ladder could go up from each booth to a catwalk above. Toll-takers could move from one booth to another, inspect the equipment, and so on, all without impeding the traffic whizzing by, paying electronically.-- ConsultingDetective, Feb 18 2004 There seems to be a different one in every state for the toll system. I wish the states would get their act together and have one universal system to pay tolls.-- bkornele, Feb 18 2004 Fully baked in Singapore and Germany (for lorries).-- kinemojo, Sep 05 2005 (but not for elizabeths)-- bristolz, Sep 05 2005 [bris] I'm puzzled by the problem with "lorries" - what does the US have for the tongue-twister "Red lorry, yellow lorry" ?-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Sep 05 2005 Brilliant idea, and it opens the way for Direct Debit Speed traps!-- Dub, Sep 05 2005 [AWOL] Is there a problem?-- bristolz, Sep 05 2005 [AWOL/brisrolz] "Two Truckee truckers truculently truckling to have truck to truck two trucks of truck." and "Hi-Tech Traveling Tractor Trailor Truck Tracker"
according to the link.
Lovely Toll booth, Looks very fast - BTW-- Dub, Sep 05 2005 [bris] Sorry, no problem, but the lorry "thing" cropped up in another idea recently. I was involved in a bid for the Singapore system some years back - the problem was getting sufficient resolution with a standard video camera on an 11' wide lane on a target moving at 100 km/h-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Sep 05 2005 random, halfbakery