What Does a Five-Axle Truck Pay on Texas Toll Roads?

What each trip costs

These are prices for specific paid alternatives. The table uses rates in effect on November 10, 2026, with the next day’s SH 130 change shown in the row. Every trip also has a free alternative. The mail column shows the toll before any separately charged invoice fees. NTTA rate tables · TxDOT January 2026 rates · HCTRA rate schedules · Central Texas Mobility Authority rates

Dallas to Buda crosses four northern SH 130 mainline plazas and one SH 45 Southeast plaza. A five-axle truck with a tag pays four times $8.96 plus $5.36, or $41.20. The same plazas add up to $61.80 at the published mail rates. On 290 Toll, two westbound plazas cost $3.00 plus $6.12 with a tag, or $4.52 plus $9.20 by mail. Multiplying the tag total by 1.5 gives $13.68, four cents short of the actual mail schedule before the $1 invoice fee. TxDOT five-axle schedule, Exhibit A · Mobility Authority 290 Toll schedule · Mobility Authority invoice guidance

The time has to pay for the extra distance

The break-even calculation adds the toll to the cost of any additional mileage, then divides by the value of a saved hour. For these examples, diesel at $4 a gallon, 6.5 miles per gallon and 27 cents of other mileage costs give about 89 cents per mile. The model values a saved hour at $60. At that rate every dollar of additional cost requires one minute of savings. Dallas to Buda costs $41.20 in tolls plus about $10.26 for the extra 11.6 miles. The paid route needs about 51 minutes of net savings. TxDOT five-axle toll schedule

Suppose the free route has 45 more minutes in a queue, and both routes otherwise average 60 mph. The detour’s extra miles take almost 12 minutes to cover, so the paid route saves about 33 minutes. At $60 an hour, that is about $33 of time against roughly $51 of added cost. The truck arrives sooner and the carrier spends about $18 more. An earlier arrival is worth less when the driver waits at the receiver anyway.

Katy’s $21 toll bought about five minutes in the morning sample

HCTRA charges commercial vehicles with at least three axles $7 per Katy managed-lane plaza, or $21 for three. For the eastbound SH 6 to I-610 segment, I summed six regular-lane links in Houston TranStar’s 2025 archive and compared them with the managed-lane route over the same observation windows. The weekday morning comparison was 17 minutes 13 seconds in the regular lanes and 12 minutes 9 seconds in the managed lanes. A $21 toll for roughly five minutes puts the break-even value near $246 an hour after accounting for the small distance difference. HCTRA Katy toll schedule · Houston TranStar historical travel times

The midday difference was about three minutes and the weekend comparison saved about a minute and a half. Those are traffic averages from participating vehicles, with no separate five-axle travel-time series. They help put the toll in context. A particular dispatch still depends on that trip’s queue, appointment and route. Houston TranStar historical data · Houston TranStar managed-lane dashboard

Some express lanes exclude trucks entirely

The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority prohibits standard vehicles with more than two axles or a trailer on its variable-rate express lanes, including MoPac and 183 Express. The state and private operators of Dallas–Fort Worth TEXpress lanes use other vehicle classes and rate rules. TxDOT’s posted minimums are a floor for eligible vehicles. A route estimate needs the actual entry, exit, direction, time and vehicle class. Mobility Authority Policy Code, §301.0211 · TxDOT TEXpress rates and vehicle factors

How we got this

I priced the routes by adding the published charges at their selected toll points. The distance comparison uses complete paid and free alternatives between the same endpoints, with modeled route lengths and a separate sensor-corridor comparison for Katy. Time, fuel and wear values in the model are explicit assumptions. The only travel-time comparison above drawn from measured traffic is the Katy example. For a dispatch decision, ask how many minutes the truck can save after the detour and how much of that time the carrier can use. TxDOT toll road inventory · Houston TranStar data