Toll Stations: The Vanishing Three-Second Pause on the Freeway

"In that three-foot-square booth, what we received was not just a ticket — it was the souls of countless travelers. When the window rolled down, what rushed in was the bitter cold of winter, the sweltering heat of summer, and that softly spoken 'thank you for your hard work.'"

30-Second Overview: Taiwan's freeway toll stations, operational from 1974 to 2013, represent one of the most vivid scenes of the island's journey from economic takeoff to digital transformation. That three-foot-square booth was once a fiscal fortress underpinning national construction, and also the "home" where 947 toll collectors devoted their youth. In a lyrical essay style, this piece traces the story from its birth amid the oil crisis, through the equity revolution sparked by electronic tolling, and the still-aching history of labor rights protests.

That was the gentlest yet cruelest moment of eye contact in Taiwan's highway history. As wheels slowly rolled into the toll lane, the roar of the engine reverberated into a muffled rhythm against the booth's barrier piers. The driver rolled down the window, and what rushed in was a wave of heat laced with the scorch of asphalt and diesel exhaust. The toll collector reached out, fingertips brushing the prepaid ticket handed over by the driver — that one-second pause was the only touch of human warmth on the freeway. Today, we pass cold, sterile gantries at 100 kilometers per hour, and that "hand-to-hand" warmth has vanished along with the demolished booths, scattered to the dust in the rearview mirror.

Before the Origin: Toll Money by the Zhuoshui River and a Railway Oddity

Before the Taishan Toll Station earned its title as the "Number One Station Under Heaven," Taiwan's toll collection history had already quietly begun on the banks of the Zhuoshui River. In 1953, the Xiluo Bridge — spanning Yunlin and Changhua counties and once the longest bridge in the Far East — opened to traffic ¹. To recover construction costs, the government established the Zhuoshui River Toll Station at the bridgehead, making it the true progenitor of highway tolling in Taiwan ².

It was an era when even crossing a bridge required "toll money." More curiously, in those days when highway bridges were still scarce, Taiwan witnessed the peculiar sight of railways collecting tolls. Over rivers in Hualien and Taitung, Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) bridges were often the sole crossing. The TRA did not just carry passengers — it also "carried the road": during gaps between trains, highway vehicles could drive onto the railway bridge, while TRA staff collected crossing fees from "bridge watchman booths" on either side ³. This shared rail-road "toll collection" system unexpectedly made the TRA an early toll station operator, a practice that continued until highway bridges were progressively completed in the 1970s ⁴.

1974: The Oil Crisis and the Fiscal Fortress of "Roads Funding Roads"

The 1970s were a period of frenzied "Ten Major Construction Projects" in Taiwan. On July 30, 1974, the nation's first freeway toll station — the Taishan Toll Station — officially opened ⁵.

The context was extraordinary: the world was in the grip of the first oil crisis, crude prices were skyrocketing, and government fiscal pressure was immense. To fund the enormous construction budget, the government adopted a "roads funding roads" policy, designating the national freeway as a toll road ⁶. At the time, the toll for a passenger car was just NT$15 — in an era when the average monthly salary was only several thousand NT dollars, this symbolized the rise of the "middle class" and the "private car dream" ⁷.

In those days, the toll station was the only rhythm on the freeway. Drivers had to decelerate from 100 kilometers per hour to a full stop, roll down their window, and in the idling rumble of the engine, complete their first financial contract with the state.

📝 Curator's Note: The birth of the toll station was Taiwan's exchange of "the user's pause and stop" for "the nation's accelerated progress."

Life Inside the Booth: Late-Night Radio and Solitude Amid Exhaust Fumes

At the peak of Taiwan's 23 toll stations, collectors worked a strict three-shift system, operating around the clock ⁸. For those on the graveyard shift, their constant companion was often a crackling radio inside the booth. The music from radio stations and freeway traffic reports wove together into a distinctive sense of solitude.

• Objects of Memory: That well-worn "book of one hundred prepaid tickets," its paper slightly rough to the touch, its edges bearing the tactile relief of intaglio anti-counterfeiting print ⁹. On the ticket surface one could faintly make out a plum blossom watermark and fluorescent anti-counterfeiting threads that shimmered under ultraviolet light. For truck drivers of the era, prepaid tickets even served as a form of "alternative currency" — often used to offset meal expenses or traded privately at rest stops ¹⁰.
• The Physical Toll: In summer, the booth was like a furnace; even a small electric fan could not dispel the oppressive heat. To avoid delaying traffic, collectors had to master the skill of "drinking water in five seconds, eating in three." Over time, chronic bladder tract inflammation and respiratory ailments became occupational labels they could never shed ¹¹.
• The Mysterious Underpass: For safety, collectors had to walk through a "mysterious underpass" beneath the freeway to reach the office. It was a corridor roughly a hundred meters long, barely wide enough for two people to pass side by side, concealing the weary faces and murmured conversations of countless shift changes ¹².

After the Zhongzheng Bridge toll station scandal in 1978, the system shifted to an all-female workforce ¹³. Within those cramped spaces, these women observed the full spectrum of society: drivers who tossed their coins and sped away, the warm brush of a palm as a ticket was handed over, and those who remained steadfast at their posts even in torrential downpours.

Technological Evolution: From Prepaid Tickets to the Equity Revolution

In 1985, "dedicated prepaid ticket lanes" were fully implemented, along with "exact-change-only lanes," reducing passage time to just 3.7 seconds ¹⁴. Yet beneath this "per-trip tolling" system lay a profound inequity. Data showed that approximately 65% of short-distance commuters (mostly metropolitan trips) passed without ever encountering a toll station and thus paid nothing, while all maintenance costs were borne by the 35% of medium- and long-distance road users ¹⁵.

This also gave rise to early "toll evasion." The famous "local's secret evasion route" at the Dajia Toll Station was an open secret among area drivers ¹⁶. This inequity and the efficiency bottleneck drove Taiwan's push toward ETC electronic toll collection.

Taiwan's ETC transformation is highly representative on the international stage. Compared to Japan's current ETC system, which still requires vehicles to slow down at gates, Taiwan's "multi-lane free-flow" system allows vehicles to pass gantries at full speed — praised by Japanese media as a "leading national nervous system" ¹⁷.

The Contracted Generation Cast Aside: Sun Hsiu-luan and the Self-Help Association

When the freeway went fully automated, 947 toll collectors lost their "home" overnight. Most were women, middle-aged or older, with an average tenure exceeding ten years. Yet due to their "one-year contract" employment status, they faced the prospect of seniority reset to zero and the difficulty of career transition ¹⁸.

Self-Help Association chairwoman Sun Hsiu-luan led members in a three-year campaign of resistance:

• 2013–2016: From petitioning the Presidential Office to the "six-steps-then-one-knee" protest march. Under scorching sun and in pouring rain, they measured with their own knees the land they had once guarded ¹⁹.
• Final Agreement: In 2016, following the inauguration of a new administration, a special compensation agreement was reached. But for many collectors, the wound of being "used and discarded" by the state could never be healed by money alone ²⁰.

This was a confrontation between "efficiency" and "dignity." In the nation's march toward modernization, these people became forgotten silhouettes in the rearview mirror.

Concretizing Memory: The Last Minute, the Lights Off

At midnight on December 29, 2013, all 132 remaining toll collectors across the island collected their last prepaid ticket. Chen Jing-ru of the Dajia Toll Station recalled that moment: she slowly pressed the light switch inside the booth, and darkness enveloped everything, save for the blinking red light of the eTag gantry in the distance ²¹.

Today, three booth sites have been preserved:

• Taishan Toll Station: Houses a "cultural artifacts display room," exhibiting yellowed prepaid tickets and uniforms ²².
• Dajia Toll Station: Its exterior, designed with a "Mazu temple" motif, has been fully preserved, symbolizing the fusion of local culture ²³.
• Tianliao Toll Station: Portions of the structure have been retained as a memorial to this chapter of freeway history ²⁴.

📝 Curator's Note: In this age of efficiency above all, it takes only one second to pass through a sensing gantry. But that vanished three-second pause was once our most tangible connection to this land.

Timeline: Fifty Years of Freeway Tolling

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