Horizons Unlimited - The HUBB - Peage for French Autoroutes

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- - Peage for French Autoroutes (https://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hubb/europe/peage-for-french-autoroutes-65088)

I never used to bother much if I took toll roads or not.
Recently I have been doing several trips to NE France and that's about 850kms on the "direct", but non-toll roads and is pleasant, if long, drive.

The last trip, I returned via the autoroute. Its ALL downside's. You travel at a higher speed, so use more fuel, its a longer distance, so even more fuel and it cost me €60 in tolls!.
All that to save about one and a half hours. I'll take the N, D and free autoroutes in future.

John

Hi Friends:

Well, with great embarrassment, I have to withdraw everything I said about using (foreign) credit cards at the unattended French toll booths. In the past few weeks, I rode from Geneva to Montpelier, then later from Biarritz to Caen, and none of my (Canadian) credit cards worked in any of the automated toll booths. I did visit a few toll booths that still had attendants, and much to my surprise, the cards worked fine when I gave them to the attendants.

The cards - all of which were the latest 'chip and PIN' types - were simply spit back at me by the automated (unattended) toll-booth, with a message "card not accepted". They worked everywhere else in France - at attended gas stations, hotels, restaurants, etc.

So, after some experimentation, I found that it was easiest to keep a stash of 5 and 10 Euro bills in my pocket, and to just shove one of those notes into the machine. Using paper notes was faster and more convenient than using coins (I found I was less likely to drop a paper note on the ground than to drop a coin, and it is easier to fish notes out of a pocket than to rummage for coins).

One suggestion for all of you: A moto is considered a "Class 5" vehicle, and only pays half the toll fee that a car (a Class 1 vehicle) pays. But, about once every 7 or 8 trips through the automated booth, the message would say that I was a Class 1 vehicle and demand more money. There is a simple solution to this: Just press the red CALL button on the tool-booth, and when the person answers, say 'motorcycle'. The person who answers the CALL button has a video display of you in front of them, and they will immediately correct the charge so that it shows you as a Class 5 vehicle.

Michael

Quote:

Originally Posted by Walkabout (Post 384703)

Most will know that the french motorways/autoroutes have a plethora of peage toll booths to collect fees for use of those "A" roads - fair enough, that is one of their ways of funding their road construction and maintenance.
Now, those booths are increasingly switching over to un-manned, automated methods of collecting the tolls.
The payment can be made by means of an automated system whereby each vehicle drives slowly through the peage station and the fee is collected automatically, or via what appear to be pre-paid cards to be entered into the machines BUT the average foreign visitor will not have these two choices to hand.
Historically, I have paid cash but this option is rapidly disappearing as the un-manning of the booths continues which leaves me with just a debit/credit card to use in the machines; the downside of this is the bank charges back at home - you can pay what amounts to a very small fee to use a short section of autoroute and end up with fixed charges by your bank that raise that fee by well over 100%.
If travelling longer distances on the A roads, the charges still accumulate on your home bank account because use of each and every toll booth incurs another standing charge for foreign exchange services.

Somewhere in another thread is discussion of the pros and cons of using pre-paid foreign exchange (forex) cards whereby you can buy what amounts to credit that is placed on a card; does anyone know if these will work in the french toll machines?

If this is a problem, take the national roads, which are free and often much prettier than the boring autoroutes. They are indicated on the maps with a red N and a number. N7 runs all the way from Paris to the Riviera. If you use France justas a transport part of your trip, then paying makes sense. If you want to see something, stay off them.