What It's Like Working in a Motorway Tollbooth Day and Night

This article originally appeared on VICE France

When I was a kid, my family always went on holiday by car. The feeling that we were truly on holiday came to me in phases. First, there were the pre-departure rituals – waking up in the middle of the night to get ahead of any bad traffic, my parents arguing about the proper way to load a car and me running off to the loo last-minute with the engine already running. And then, finally, we were off. Winding roads took us to the motorway, where my dad slowed down at the toll point and gave some coins to the hand that appeared from the tollbooth. That hand and the person attached to it fascinated me – so isolated in a cabin in the middle of a motorway, while at the same time briefly touching the lives of hundreds of people passing by. After my father had paid, the barrier opened and our holiday officially began.

The human gatekeepers of France's tollways have become a rarity, having widely made way for automatic ticket machines. Claude Amoulric started manning tollbooths in 1983, and experienced this radical change first-hand. Until 2010, he operated the barrier at the Lançon-Provence exit on the A7 – the "Autoroute du Soleil" or "Motorway of the Sun". Today, those booths are completely automatic and Claude works in Orange as remote assistance for people using tollways managed by VINCI Autoroutes. When you're stuck at a barrier that won't go up and the driver behind you starts honking and hurling insults at you, Claude is the voice coming from the machine and he will fix the problem.

I went to see him at the VINCI control centre over his coffee break, to talk about his life in the tollbooths, naked driving and existential motorway philosophy.

VICE: Hi Claude, what was working in the tollbooths like?
Claude Amoulric: I worked eight hours straight – both days and nights. I would take my seat, receive a float from my supervisor and that would be the start of my day. A car would stop, I'd take the toll and open the barrier with one of the six buttons on my dashboard. When the till was full, someone would come to empty it. That was it.

Wasn't that boring?
No, I was never bored. It was my job and I just accepted it for what it was. I felt at home there – I was in my own world. On quieter moments I'd listen to the radio, read a book or do a crossword, and sometimes a regular would stop to chat for a minute. I was never lonely – we had an intercom so I could chat with my colleagues. I had a lot of friends in the French tollway world.

You worked at the toll point at Lançon-Provence in the south of France – wasn't it uncomfortable to be stuck in the middle of traffic in the heat all day?
Oh definitely. After half an hour in a tollbooth your shirt is drenched and your nose is burnt to a crisp. In the summer you suffocate and in the winter you freeze. And there's an extractor fan in every booth, but it you're still sitting in exhaust fumes all day.

What were your favourite shifts?
People are most relaxed during the nights and the early mornings – when they're too sleepy to get impatient or aggressive. But you get drunk drivers at those times, too – slurring their words and trying to find the exact change. I would sometimes advise them to stop for a bit to rest but couldn't do much more than that. In the end, letting people through was my job – it still is.

What have stuck with you over the years?
I've seen some famous people and politicians drive by. I had Jean-Marie Le Pen at the tollbooth once, for example. He was famously wearing an eyepatch at the time, you could spot him a mile off. But really, if you work on the motorway day in, day out you see everything. You'd be surprised to see how many people drive around completely naked.

Have you ever felt unsafe?
One time at five in the morning a black BMW pulled up to my cabin, with four passengers who were all wearing white masks. When the driver rolled down the window I noticed a gun resting in his lap. I was about to let them straight through, but then he handed me the exact change. I later read there had been a break-in in Valence about a hundred miles north of my tollbooth and that the suspects had fled south. Another time a driver pointed a gun at me and demanded money from the till. I didn't think twice and handed it to him, but then he burst out laughing and told me he was joking. When I said I didn't think that was funny, he said I had no sense of humour. That was very annoying – I think I'm quite funny.

Has people's driving style changed over the years?
Generally, I think people want to lose as little time as possible these days – which makes their driving style more nervous and impatient than it used to be. Then again, what are you doing on the motorway if you're not trying to get somewhere as quickly as possible?

How do you feel about the fact that manned booths have gradually made way for machines?
You have to move with the times. A lot has changed: when I started in 1983, the toll system on the French motorways was open – which meant that you'd pay a fixed price for using a tollway. These days the system is closed – you pay a price per kilometre. Then the automating started. As for me, I was fully aware that the job of physically working in a tollbooth would disappear in time.

You now work at a remote toll point assistance centre – aren't you worried that your current job will be taken over by a machine as well?
I think you'll always need a human presence in some capacity, but it might change, sure. Thanks to the machines we don't have to collect people's money anymore – these days we answer questions and solve any technical problems. You can't be afraid of those kinds of changes.

Has your job changed the way you see the motorway and life on the road?
To me, driving on the motorway has always represented human existence itself. Taking your ticket from the machine is birth, the drive is life and the exit – the moment you pay for the distance you've driven – is death. When I was working in the booth I'd meet people at the end of their lives on the road. It wasn't sad, because there's always a rebirth – everyone takes another ticket eventually.

I see. Thank you Claude.

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