The world’s most expensive toll?

A bridge connects Copenhagen and Malmo, and now the price is higher:

…the basic price for a one-way car journey across the bridge has been jacked up to 510 Danish kroner, or £58. For the largest vans, it is the equivalent of £218.

Research by Sydsvenskan, a regional newspaper in southern Sweden, suggests this is by far the most expensive bridge toll on the planet, costing about twice as much as its nearest rivals in Japan and Canada…

Despite the vehicle toll, the total number of people crossing the Oresund by car, train or ferry hit a record 38 million last year, equivalent to about 105,000 trips a day. A one-way railway journey between central Copenhagen and Malmo typically costs only £13.

Here is the full story from The Times.  I find this intrinsically interesting, but I also would like to make a simple point.   If you are assessing the optimal toll here, claims that “the higher toll limited congestion,” or “the higher toll diminished the number of car trips” are not dispositive.  They are relevant information, but one also has to measure whether gains from trade across the two polities went down as well.  Otherwise, you do not have much of a conclusion.