The Truck’s Actual Toll Bill, Returned With the Route

The fastest route and the cheapest route are rarely the same line on the map. The difference is usually tolls — and a passenger car’s toll rate has almost nothing to do with what a 5-axle, 36-tonne, placarded tractor-trailer pays at the same plaza. If your dispatch math uses a car estimate and a fudge factor, the invoice is going to surprise you.

Road511’s routing endpoint returns the toll cost computed for the truck you’re actually moving. Opt in on a route request and you get back two things: a per-currency total for the whole trip, and a per-section breakdown naming each toll system and the fare that applies to your vehicle class.

Opt In With include

Toll pricing is opt-in, because computing it has an upstream cost — you only pay for it when you ask. Add "tolls" to the include array on POST /api/v1/routing/route:

curl -X POST "https://api.road511.com/api/v1/routing/route" \
  -H "X-API-Key: your_key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "origin":      { "lat": 40.7128, "lng": -74.0060 },
    "destination": { "lat": 39.9526, "lng": -75.1652 },
    "currency": "USD",
    "truck": {
      "profile":  "tractor",
      "weight_t": 36.0,
      "height_m": 4.2,
      "axles":    5,
      "hazmat":   true
    },
    "include": ["tolls"]
  }'

That’s New York City→Philadelphia for a 5-axle placarded tractor. The currency field (ISO 4217) controls what the fares are reported in; the truck profile you already send is what makes the price the truck’s price.

The Response

Two places carry toll data. The route summary gets a toll_costs array — one entry per distinct currency, because a single trip can cross systems billed in different currencies (think a US–Canada run mixing USD and CAD). Each route section gets a tolls array naming the systems charged on that stretch and the fares within them.

{
  "routes": [
    {
      "summary": {
        "distance_m": 153400,
        "duration_s": 7320,
        "toll_costs": [
          { "currency": "USD", "value": 38.75 }
        ]
      },
      "sections": [
        {
          "distance_m": 92100,
          "duration_s": 4080,
          "summary": "I-95 S via New Jersey Turnpike",
          "tolls": [
            {
              "system": "New Jersey Turnpike",
              "fares": [
                { "name": "Class 5 (5 axles)",
                  "price": { "currency": "USD", "value": 31.40 } }
              ]
            }
          ]
        },
        {
          "distance_m": 61300,
          "duration_s": 3240,
          "summary": "Delaware River bridge crossing",
          "tolls": [
            {
              "system": "Delaware River Port Authority",
              "fares": [
                { "name": "5-axle truck",
                  "price": { "currency": "USD", "value": 7.35 } }
              ]
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "geometry": { "type": "LineString", "coordinates": [ /* ... */ ] }
    }
  ],
  "route_id": "rt_a17f93c0"
}

The summary.toll_costs value is the sum of that currency’s section fares — the number you’d quote a customer or drop into a lane-cost model. The sections[].tolls[] detail is where you see which authority charges what, so you can explain the bill or compare against a toll-free alternative.

Priced for the Vehicle, Not a Sedan

This is the whole point. The fare you get back is keyed to the truck profile on the request — axle count, gross weight, height, and the hazmat flag all factor into the classification the toll engine prices against. A 5-axle combination doesn’t get a 2-axle rate; a heavy load doesn’t get a light-vehicle rate. The fares[].name echoes the class that was applied (e.g. “Class 5 (5 axles)”) so you can confirm the truck was rated the way you expected.

Routing Around Tolls

Sometimes the answer is to skip the toll road entirely. That’s a different field: put "tolls" in the avoid array and the engine routes around toll facilities where it can, so you can compare the toll-free option’s extra time and distance against the money saved.

{ "origin": { /* ... */ }, "destination": { /* ... */ },
  "truck": { /* ... */ },
  "alternatives": 1,
  "avoid": ["tolls"],
  "include": ["tolls"] }

Request an alternative alongside the avoid, keep "tolls" in include, and you get both routes priced — the fast tolled line and the toll-free detour — to make the trade-off explicit instead of a guess.

What to Expect From the Data

A few honest notes so the numbers behave the way you expect:

• Major corridors are well covered — Interstate turnpikes, major bridges and tunnels, express lanes, and Canadian facilities like the 407 ETR price reliably for trucks.
• Coverage thins on the margins. Some secondary or rural toll facilities are known to the engine but may return a system name with no priced fare for a given vehicle class — treat a missing price as “not priced,” not “free.”
• It’s a planning estimate. Toll pricing is computed at request time for the route and vehicle class; it’s built for dispatch and quoting, not for reconciling a transponder statement to the cent.
• No tolls, no array. A toll-free route, or a request that didn’t opt in, simply omits toll_costs and section tolls — the response shape stays stable.

One Call, the Whole Trip

Toll pricing rides the same POST /api/v1/routing/route as the corridor hazard warnings[] and the Hours-of-Service break planning. A single request can hand back a drivable truck route, the clearances and restrictions on it, where the driver must legally stop, and what the trip costs in tolls — the operational picture a dispatcher actually needs before the truck rolls. Routing is a paid-plan feature (featured on Pro+) with a free 14-day trial.

Try It

• API docs — full request and response reference for POST /api/v1/routing/route
• Truck routing with live hazard warnings — the corridor enrichment in the same call
• Free API key — no credit card, 14-day trial