Are tolls useless?

[Raytruth]

I have a 30000 people city with one connection to the highway, i placed a toll at the entrance and leaved at default.
It costs 120 per week and when it started to pay for itself it was already full and i had to change to the largest one, costing 200 per week. Now it's working enough to slow down the traffic entering my city but it' does'nt repay for itself. Even if a put it to the max value i will end gaining a couple hundred bucks. Right now my balance has a 8000 profits per month. So i'm thinking, why to put those things down? or am i missing something?

[TheGreenman]

I get the feeling this was added in as more of a "well there are tollbooths in real life". Unfortunately the biggest thing you have to manage in this game is traffic. Most things you usually put down in this game is some way to speed it up or re route traffic to ease congestion. The tollbooths don't really feel like they're worth using because they instantly creates a bottleneck.

[CyberVibes]

Seen if you can gleen any tips from this monster, he seems to have it rolling in lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFXTEzzhdpI

[mbutton15]

Did you enable the new policy ? It allows auto-payment so the vehicles don't need to stop to pay the charge. There is a 30% cost of fare, but at least the vehicles should roll straight through.

[Raytruth]

I don't have any problem, logistically speaking, with policy and the large one the flow is big enough to substain a three way highway. What i'm saying is they do not generates profits, or when they do is negligible. In the video, the guy is using lots of them so in the bottom line looks like there is an income, but if you consider every toll booth subtract 120 or 200 to that number you will soon end up with the consideration that is simply not worth.
In my perception they should use a number at least ten times what we have now. For those who are thinking that would be not realistic a car spending ten bucks to pass through a toll booth, i invite to consider that in real life would pass way more cars then we have in a week in game.
This is of course, just my opinion.

[CyberVibes]

Tollbooths are notoriously profitable in real life so it would be fair to say that you would expect the same of the ingame version.

I haven't used tolls in my latest save so am not sure about this but isn't there a expenses v's profit tab for this?

[Raytruth]

Originally posted by CyberVibes:

Tollbooths are notoriously profitable in real life so it would be fair to say that you would expect the same of the ingame version.

I haven't used tolls in my latest save so am not sure about this but isn't there a expenses v's profit tab for this?

I used one toll booth and as soon as cars are started to pass through it i started to see money in the toll tab proportional to the number of cars, so i guessed the toll tab just show the income and the expenses are somewhere else. Let me know if your esperiments shows otherwise.

[OneJasonBradly]

Are tolls useless?
I wonder the same thing though I do so with a chip on my shoulder at the moment since the Industries update happened. Firstly how many ways does one need to create a profit or a large treasury in the game? Almost every game file I have touched of anyone’s play has millions on millions in their treasury. So I can’t see placing one down for income. Placing it in the game because it’s a real life event or thing make little sense as well for there are many other things from real world that could be added. I am under the impression that they are useless for practical use thought they may look good in instances of entering a stadium parking or ferry terminal or somewhere that requires a controlled entrance and exit but that’s not what they were made for.
I most likely would have a better outlook upon them if the traffic mechanics didn’t need to change (nerfed) so much for them to work or for this update or DLC to work. Are they useable? Yes. Are they useful? No, I can’t see how they are useful. Again this opinion is based on my displeasure of the Industries DLC.

[Vitsed]

Useless.

[obstructor]

I mean I put one on the highway ramp for my industrial zone and they all immediately switched to using the train station for exports, which I view as a win even though the toll booth only breaks even.

[Metacritical]

Originally posted by TheGreenman:

I get the feeling this was added in as more of a "well there are tollbooths in real life".

it was added because players demanded it

[Phoenix C64]

i actually use them to LOWER traffic.
when i have a train from district A to district B... many people might still use the highway as it might be more direct/quicker. ... but if i put some strategic toll roads (without abusing like above video did) it seems that more people use public transport ;)

[RedLegs13B]

Only useful to slow down traffic in my opinion, gets points for being able to add another aspect of realism to our cities, but it doesn't have that cha-ching factor. Unless you do something crazy like in that YouTube video above.

[jecleworth]

I am using toll booths into and out of my cargo terminals, so it's mostly truck traffic. They are profitable for me.

[Lord Sauron]

I use them to split a very busy highway in two halves. One slower but fee-free road and one faster toll-road. By raising or lowering the toll price, it's quite possible to divide the traffic in such a way that there's no traffic jam while also earning some money you otherwise would not see.

[AoD_lexandro]

People are not using them because they dont understand the potential.

Need to make a realistic dock? Add a toll booth as the entrance gate, and throw fences around it. Voila, security gated docklands. Want a gated community? Hey toll booth!
Want to make a lot of money at the start of the game? A whopper line of toll booths does the job! Need a way to join up multiple roads, toll booth has 6 lanes! Make your cargo stations extra profitable by adding tool booths before and after the station!

Add "automated tool booths" city policy. Use TMPE to set lane speeds and lane connections, and you can make them extremely efficient.