A “toll” in the purest sense is a user fee; and, in most cases, is collected to recover the cost of bonds sold to finance a specific roadway or bridge. Unlike taxes, paid whether one uses the facility or not; when a facility is funded by tolls, if you don’t use the facility, you don’t pay for it. The concept is simple, straightforward, easy to understand and, arguably, one of the fairest approaches to infrastructure financing . However, the word “toll” has developed a negative connotation in the U.S.

A rebranding effort on the word “toll” similar to that which the food industry has successfully completed with  “prunes” is thus warranted.

To those who might suggest that the toll industry is too disparate to accomplish this, the roadway safety industry has recently, successfully, rebranded the term “accident” with “crash”, since most incidents are preventable. The questions, thus, becomes:

            1) What term (or terms) should be used for rebranding?

One source of inspiration for such a rebranding effort can be found in the cable TV industry. Most of us pay a user fee for cable TV and internet services, including a fee for basic monthly service, with up-charges for premium TV, internet access and special programming. However, these very successful companies never use the term “toll” or “user fee”. They give each basic programming package a unique name, like Xfinity®, U-verse and Star-TV,  and offer premium services by bundling commonly desired programming and services, or by providing programming On Demand™.

            2) How do we make the rebranding effort successful?

An open discussion is welcome.

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* Juliet, Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare.

© 2013 The eTrans Group, Inc.