8 Hungarian villages where Google Maps sends you on a needless toll road
You know that feeling when you search a route on Google Maps, it cheerfully hands you a nice, fast route — and then, right at the end, drops a tiny yellow warning triangle on you: "oh, and you'll need a toll pass"? Bad news: very often, that toll pass is simply unnecessary.
Not a theory — we measured it
We compared Google Maps routes for 2000 Hungarian towns against our own, self-hosted route planner — specifically looking for cases where BOTH Google AND we would suggest a tolled route first, while a nearly-as-fast, completely toll-free alternative actually exists. We found 338 such cases. Below are our favourites, with real numbers — nothing invented, just looked up.
The list
- Kóka — tolled: 53.0 min / 52.2 km, free: 51.9 min / 49.1 km. The free route isn't just cheaper — it's FASTER too. This isn't a saving, it's a scandal.
- Nagytarcsa — tolled: 26.2 min / 28.3 km, free: 26.0 min / 20.1 km. An 8 km unnecessary motorway detour for a village right next to Budapest.
- Szentmártonkáta — tolled: 61.2 min / 59.8 km, free: 61.2 min / 56.4 km. Same minutes, 3.4 km shorter. The toll here is a pure gift — to Google.
- Tápiószecső — tolled: 54.3 min / 51.7 km, free: 54.4 min / 48.5 km. Six seconds is the price of skipping an entire vignette.
- Zsámbok — tolled: 52.1 min / 54.7 km, free: 52.2 min / 50.7 km. A 4 km detour for a piece of paper.
- Sülysáp — tolled: 47.4 min / 45.7 km, free: 47.5 min / 42.3 km. You're there six seconds later — without a vignette, and 3.4 km less rattling around.
- Isaszeg — tolled: 36.2 min / 42.5 km, free: 36.5 min / 31.0 km. 11.5 kilometres. For half a minute.
- Tóalmás — tolled: 56.6 min / 68.4 km, free: 56.8 min / 56.9 km. The tolled version adds 11.5 km — it doesn't even shorten anything.
Our favourite: Mende
The exact same 40.8 minutes, either way. Except one version is 3.4 km shorter — and doesn't ask you for a vignette. Google's normal mode still surfaces the tolled one first, even though here you can keep the price of a national daily vignette (5,550 Ft) in your pocket, for zero extra time.
Before you grab the pitchforks: Google isn't dumb
Google Maps' "normal" mode optimises for exactly one thing: time. If a tolled road is just as fast (or merely looks faster), it surfaces it — not because it hates you, but because it never even asks itself "is this actually worth a toll pass?" That's a question you'd have to ask yourself on every trip — or leave to an engine whose entire job is exactly that.
Check your own route
You get five free searches with no registration required — plenty to find out whether your own route has a Mende moment. Open OptimÚt, enter your From/To, and we'll show you if there's a nearly-as-fast, cheaper way.