Understanding tolls

The three systems

1. The closed system (“with a ticket”)

You take a ticket (or your badge is read) at the entrance, and you pay at the exit. The price depends on the pair entrance → exit: this is what is called an origin-destination price (“OD”). Motorway companies publish genuine matrices every year: one row per entry plaza, one column per exit plaza, the price where they meet. Most of the network (APRR, ASF, Sanef, Escota…) works this way.

2. The open system (flat fee as you pass)

No ticket: a barrier across the carriageway charges you a fixed amount at every crossing, whatever your origin or destination. Intermediate entries and exits are often free. This is the case on busy urban or coastal sections — for example some of the A8 barriers around Nice.

3. Free-flow

No barrier at all: gantries span the motorway and detect the vehicle as it passes, at full speed (badge, number plate). Without a toll badge, you must pay online yourself within 72 hours, or face a surcharge. The A79 and the A13/A14 in Normandy work this way.

The cases that surprise people

The paying entry slip road

At the boundary between an open zone and a closed zone, some access slip roads are themselves fitted with a barrier that charges a small flat fee on entry. The operator then splits the official price into two lines on your statement: the slip road fee, then the balance at the exit barrier. The two added together land exactly on the published origin-destination price.

Leaving with no barrier… and still being charged

In the open system, you can enter or leave by a free slip road: you pay only if you cross a full-carriageway barrier along the way. Conversely, you can be charged on entering the motorway (a barrier crossed in the direction of the merge) and then leave freely. So the amount does not always match “where you left the motorway” — it matches the barriers you actually crossed.

The same junction, different slip roads

A junction often means four slip roads (entry and exit, in each direction) — and they are not always treated alike: one may charge a flat fee, another may be free, a third may carry an exit plaza of the closed system. That is why two crossings “at the same toll” can produce two different amounts depending on the slip road taken.

The lost ticket: the highest price

In the closed system, with no proof of your entry plaza (lost ticket, unreadable badge), the company applies the highest possible price to your exit plaza (known in French as “TLPC”). Some pairs in the official list do show amounts that look illogical: these are regulatory values of that kind, not mistakes.

A short glossary

OD price origin-destination

Official price of an entry plaza → exit plaza pair in the closed system. Published every year in price lists by motorway company.

Toll plaza

The point of collection: all the payment lanes of a junction or of a barrier. A plaza can be “entry only”, “exit only”, or both.

BPV full-carriageway barrier

A barrier that cuts across the motorway itself (every lane), as opposed to plazas sitting on the slip roads of a junction. It is the instrument of the open system.

Free-flow gantry

An arch fitted with sensors that replaces the barrier: detection at full speed, payment by badge or online within 72 h.

Flat fee

A fixed amount charged at every crossing of a given point (open barrier, gantry, tunnel), independent of the rest of the trip.

Transit A79 free-flow

On the A79, two gantries frame each junction. Crossing both (you are only passing through) costs a bundled “transit” price, which is not the simple sum of the two zones.

Vehicle classes (1 to 5)

Class 1: car (height < 2 m). Class 2: vans, camper vans, cars with a low caravan. Classes 3 and 4: lorries and coaches. Class 5: motorcycles. The price of the same trip changes sharply from one class to another.

Toll badge

A unit (Ulys, Bip&Go, Fulli…) that pays automatically as you pass. The operator's monthly statement lists every collection — it is the reference against which to check an estimate.

The 1^st February revision

The prices of concession motorways are revised every year on 1^st February (orders published in the Journal officiel at the end of January). An estimate calculated on the old price list may differ by a few cents in early February.

And where does Péage Notif fit in?

The app carries the official price lists (OD matrices, flat fees, free-flow prices) and rebuilds your trip live: it remembers your entry plaza, recognises the barriers actually crossed — paying slip roads included — and announces the corresponding amount as you pass. When information is missing (entry not detected, pair absent from the official list), it would rather say honestly “entry unknown” than invent a figure. The amounts remain non-binding estimates: only your operator's statement is authoritative.