For whom the bridge tolls

On Friday I journeyed with a couple of colleagues to Aldwark, where we were running a business game that I designed last year.

The route we took required us to cross Aldwark toll bridge - see it here. The toll was a princely 15p. Between the three of us we were just about able to scrape this together. Service involved a little man in a flourescent yellow jacket stopping all the cars, taking their money (mostly in coined form) and giving them a little slip of paper as a ticket?receipt?souvenir?

The bridge is not in a busy area - it's in a little country village that has no real reason to get many cars passing through - so we were not quite sure how the 15ps would add to enough to pay the man, let alone maintain the bridge. After crossing the bridge, it seems they may not be spending too much on maintenance - it felt a little rickety.

But then I guess you need only around 20 cars an hour to give minimum wage - one every three minutes (in either direction) so they might just be able to pay him.

And the Clifton Suspension Bridge, a much more impressive Bristol-based construction is only 20p to cross - it will have many more cars, but also much higher maintenance costs.

Well, regardless of the economics, the mere existence of the bridge made our journey much more exciting. Only if the man in the yellow jacket had actually been a troll in a yellow jacket could the journey have been better.