Barrier-free tolling on the way

Flukey

Belfast Telegraph wrote:

Cullen welcomes barrier-free tolling on M50

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

The Transport Minister Martin Cullen is welcoming the introduction of barrier-free tolling on the M50 motorway.


Mr Cullen says the decision by the National Roads Authority to collect tolls through an electronic system will mean improved traffic flow for motorists.
The multi-lane free-flow system is expected to be in place by the summer of 2008.


The electronic toll scheme will be managed by the BetEire Flow company.

What they really should have is toll-free tolling, seeing the amount of other ways that motorists have to pay towards the government.

Drax

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1775983&issue_id=15250 (registration required)

TAXPAYERS have been hit with an extra bill of €113m to raise the West-Link toll barriers on the M50.

A sum of €600m to buy out the contract from the private National Toll Roads, which operates the toll bridge, is already chalked up on the taxpayers' tab.

Now, another €113m - the sum being paid to a French private company which has won the contract for electronic tolling - will have to come out of the State purse.

As many as 100,000 motorists a day will still have to pay up to €2 in 'invisible' tolls if they use the M50 from August next year.

A series of tolling points along the full length of the ringroad to catch more drivers may be on the cards.

A French consortium, BetEire Flow, was yesterday awarded the contract to design and operate barrier-free tolling for eight years.

Fine Gael said yesterday it understood plans were afoot to move the tolling point away from the West-Link bridge to a spot between the N4 Lucan interchange and the Red Cow roundabout to bring more drivers into the toll net. This may lead to a series of 'rolling tolls' along the M50.

Currently, drivers using the ringroad are only hit with the levy if they travel over the West-Link bridge.

From August 2008, motorists using the M50 will have to register and place a tag in their vehicles.

The registration numbers of all cars will be filmed and motorists who refuse to pay tolls will be prosecuted.

BetEire Flow is a consortium comprising French toll operator Sanef and CS, a French systems designer.

Transport Minister Martin Cullen said yesterday the Government and the National Roads Authority (NRA) were fully committed to improving the level of service provided to motorists on the M50.

He said awarding the contract for the introduction of a new barrier-free tolling system represented significant progress towards the upgrade of the motorway.

Mr Cullen said the electronic collection of tolls would allow for improved traffic flow as drivers would no longer have to slow down at the West-Link bridge to hand over cash at toll booths.

"Road users will begin to see significant benefits next year when the first phases of the motorway upgrade are complete and the barrier-free tolling is in place," he said.

I just find this unbelievable almost. I actually was talking to someone who works on the toll bridge and even they were telling me that even they cant see how barrier-free tolling is going to work smoothly.

As I have said before I have no problem paying inter-city tolls, but paying on a road like this in just plain stupid. What happens if I use it once every 6 months to go from Blanch to Lucan and dont pay - are they going to hunt me down for 2 euro? What about foreign cars, northern cars etc, car with mud-covered plates.... Will everyone have to buy a tag? Will it finally be compatible with e-toll etc....

Bring on the toll paying boycott....

Red Alert

a boycott would be cool, but would need massive publicity to do - and not everyone would stick to it.

Seth Brundle

Weren't there plans in the past for a boycott but they fell through because as usual the Irish are crap at protesting?

BrianD

Personally, I think that now that the State is buying out the Westlink toll operator replacing it with a single electronic toll is simply unfair.

The opportunity should be taken to toll the entire M50. This is the only fair way to do it. Why should those who cross from north to south accross the river be the only ones to pay? It's irrational and inequitable.

The toll should be structured so that the short hops are more expensive than the longer ones etc.

mollser

BrianD wrote:

Personally, I think that now that the State is buying out the Westlink toll operator replacing it with a single electronic toll is simply unfair.

The opportunity should be taken to toll the entire M50. This is the only fair way to do it. Why should those who cross from north to south accross the river be the only ones to pay? It's irrational and inequitable.

The toll should be structured so that the short hops are more expensive than the longer ones etc.

...thus encouraging rat running, increasing traffic on local roads and increasing safety risks etc

No easy solution to this, but i'm quite sure they could've come up with a simpler agreement with NTR to introduce barrier free tolling, that would cost less than €713m. I'm not sure what buying out NTR as at a price based on their future lost revenues is going to achieve, when they need to then pay a new operator to do a similar function, albeit at a fixed price. They appear to really be in a bind with that stupid NTR contract they signed.

Madness

MICKEYG

BrianD wrote:

Personally, I think that now that the State is buying out the Westlink toll operator replacing it with a single electronic toll is simply unfair.

The opportunity should be taken to toll the entire M50. This is the only fair way to do it. Why should those who cross from north to south accross the river be the only ones to pay? It's irrational and inequitable.

The toll should be structured so that the short hops are more expensive than the longer ones etc.

All tolls are inequitable unless you toll every road in the country including minor streets and cul de sacs. They all need to be built and they all cost money. The best way is a tax on petrol - easy to collect and 100% fair - plus get rid of VRT and road tax.

bk

Drax wrote:

What happens if I use it once every 6 months to go from Blanch to Lucan and dont pay - are they going to hunt me down for 2 euro? What about foreign cars, northern cars etc, car with mud-covered plates.... Will everyone have to buy a tag? Will it finally be compatible with e-toll etc..

Such systems work just fine elsewhere. What happens is that you pre-register your car on a website and top-up with credit. As you go under the toll it reads your license plate and deducts the charge from your account.

If you don't pre-register, then it reads your license plate, looks up the license plate database for your address and sends you a letter asking to pay the toll. Usually this charge is 3 or 4 times higher then if you pre-register.

If you don't pay the toll, then the charge you own continues to rise and they bring you to court where you end up paying a few hundred euros.

Seth Brundle

Cue loads of vehicle registration cloning reports to the gardai!!!

Chris_533976

Wasnt the M50 paid for mostly with EU structural money, and the Westlink built with Irish money (effectively) so it could be tolled?

Does that mean the EU could go on a bit of a rampage over plans to privately toll a road built with EU money?

eoineen

BrianD wrote:

The opportunity should be taken to toll the entire M50. This is the only fair way to do it. Why should those who cross from north to south accross the river be the only ones to pay?

How about this - everyone in the country pays 1% more on the standard rate of tax and all the tolls are lifted?

Random

Get rid of tolls. Period.

Metrobest

Getting rid of all tolls is not the answer, especially on the congested M50. Don't forget that thousands of drivers don't use the M50 because of the toll - make the road free and you add thousands of extra vehicles onto this already-choked highway.

As for collecting the tolls, I like the system in Sydney where tolls are collected in one direction only.

Melbourne has electronic tolling on its city ring road - drivers who don't have a tag in their cars must ring up a call centre and pay by credit card if they stray onto the motorway.

Capt'n Midnight

MICKEYG wrote:

All tolls are inequitable unless you toll every road in the country including minor streets and cul de sacs. They all need to be built and they all cost money. The best way is a tax on petrol - easy to collect and 100% fair - plus get rid of VRT and road tax.

As I keep pointing out, we are on an island. Once the lads up north agree on the same price at the pump it should be very difficult to avoid.

Pricing people off the road and using the money raised to provide public transport would be the way to go. The fat cats get empty roads, everyone gets to work and no one has to spend 4 hours a day in a car travelling at cyclist speed.

POLO9N

YEP, I AGREE on that theres defintily issues aprat from foreign cars, dirty reg plate etc.
i would think the idea of tolling would keep some driver away from M50, and the one way toll charge can be a good idea as its ridicuolous if driver have to go thru toll few times a day and pay that crazy sum.

and for those it only make sense to pay a once off amount for the day and they can use the motorway unlimited for the day.

eoineen

Metrobest wrote:

Getting rid of all tolls is not the answer, especially on the congested M50. Don't forget that thousands of drivers don't use the M50 because of the toll - make the road free and you add thousands of extra vehicles onto this already-choked highway.

I see your point as I sat for as long on the N4 slip road yesterday lunchtime as I did approaching the toll bridge but the principle is being questioned. Is it not better for us all to pay for public goods rather than hive it off to some waste management company that sits back and counts the cash rolling in?

Better still, raise duty on petrol for private cars (charged at pumps) thus not hurting the hauliers / other vested interests and put that money to paying the cost of the roads - i.e. revitalising the idea that road tax is for roads.

BrianD

mollser wrote:

...thus encouraging rat running, increasing traffic on local roads and increasing safety risks etc

There is absolutely no evidence to support this claim. The M50 was built as a national primary route. There would be no increase in local roads. For the person who travels a long length of the M50 there really is no rat run alternative. For a person who maybe uses the route between two junctions then I would classify it as 'local traffic' that should be absorbed by the local roads. The rat run arguement holds no water and is a red herring.

My view is that tolling should be for traffic management - toll the entire route or make the whole route free as another poster suggests.

AlekSmart

The entire issue of Tolling is becoming bogged down in classic right vs wrong.
This in itself is a positive thing,or rather would be if we were living on mainland Europe.
We Are Not.

What we have at present is an administration which finds itself very publicly humiliated each and every day on the M50 by a VERY oddly devised and constructed "Contract" between it and a private entity which so happens to be NTR/Westlink.

The somewhat "Close" associations between NTR and Central Administrations via the Roche Family and its Trust serve only to cast doubt over the essential worth of those contracts from a Public Good viewpoint.

My belief is essentially simple.
The Judicial Tribunals investigating various aspects of Irish Public Administration are still very much in operation,particularly the Mahon Tribunal.

The VERY close involvement of so many Mahon Tribunal "Names" such as Mr Liam Lawlor,Mr G.Redmond,Mr P Flynn and others with the initial phase of NTR`s WestLink project raises In MY mind serious questions as to the strength of purpose of the entire scheme.

I believe the contract between the Irish Government and NTR/Westlink to be at the very least "Tainted" by dubious intentions if not actual practices.

As a layperson I have serious difficulty with the scale of monetary remuneration which appears to be envisaged in order to "Buy Out" NTR`s original entitlements in this matter.

I believe that there are further serious questions which remain unanswered in relation to the lead up to the West Link bridge concept and particularly to the issues of land and access availibility in the vicinity of the Bridge as well as any large or strategic transfeers of ownership which took place in the immediate lead up to the West Link project.

Sadly,the laissez-faire attitude which begat WestLink has been reinforced as can be seen by the proliferation of "New" Multi-Nationals who have taken up the reins of Irish Primary Route Tolling,all of course in a totally uncoordinated and seperatist manner.

While this question rattles around in one`s head please consider the following.....

Saturday 17th Feb witnessed a very large and comprehensive Dublin City Council presence at Drumcondra Bridge inbound.
During the course of the day some VERY high quality reinstatement work was carried out in a textbook example of What ALL such work should entail.

The works in question took place almost directly outside the constituency office of An Taoiseach Mr B Aherne.

Given that the sane City Council is also responsible for the crazed and dangerous state of Leeson St at the approach to Leeson St Bridge is it now a prerequisite for a serving Taoiseach to have offices nearby before any PROPER remedial work is carried out to the carriageway.......or am I missing something essential here..???? :mad:

TheNog

I think that every entrance ramp to the all motorways (tolled ones) should have the barrier-free tolling. This will catch more motorists thus reducing the actual cost of the toll. The barrier tolls were the very cause of rat runs such as witnessed in Drogheda and Julianstown where motorists avoid the toll outside Drogheda. Both places have seen a huge increase in traffic since the M1 was opened to the scale of being worse than before the M1 was constructed.

Aquavid

Tolling every onramp would certainly discourage those $%^^&**(&s who drive all the way around the M50 on the hard shoulder, coming off and on again at every junction!

Indeed, if we have number-plate recognition for multiple tolling points, could it not be used to issue fixed penalty notices those those DRIVING on the hard shoulder?

Aquavid

antoinolachtnai

hang on, where exactly is there an example of a technically successful large scale tolling system that is based on number-plate recognition?

murphaph

antoinolachtnai wrote:

hang on, where exactly is there an example of a technically successful large scale tolling system that is based on number-plate recognition?

Is that a trick question?

Bluetonic

TheNog wrote:

The barrier tolls were the very cause of rat runs such as witnessed in Drogheda and Julianstown where motorists avoid the toll outside Drogheda. Both places have seen a huge increase in traffic since the M1 was opened to the scale of being worse than before the M1 was constructed.

Of course there isn't more traffic travelling the N1 (R132) at Julianstown since the M1 opened, thats just a silly thing to say.

The traffic on this road is mainly down to the increase in the last 7 years of the populations of Drogheda, Laytown, Bettystown and Mornington. with housing comes traffic.

BrianD

antoinolachtnai wrote:

hang on, where exactly is there an example of a technically successful large scale tolling system that is based on number-plate recognition?

The M80 in Melbourne uses it. You either have the e-toll gizmo or you have 24 hours. I'd imagine that getting all M50 users onto an e-tag is going to be a logistical nightmare. In many ways, it will not be the actual toll but the means of paying the toll that will force a lot of people off the M50!

wrote:

The barrier tolls were the very cause of rat runs such as witnessed in Drogheda and Julianstown where motorists avoid the toll outside Drogheda. Both places have seen a huge increase in traffic since the M1 was opened to the scale of being worse than before the M1 was constructed.

I would hazard a guess that a lot of this traffic is locals using the availability of the M1 as part of a new local route for them. Plus there is a hugh increase in the local population in this area, much of it unsustainable suburban sprawl. The fact that local roads are once again busy underlines the poor quality of living we have in this country.

transylman

AlekSmart wrote:

The entire issue of Tolling is becoming bogged down in classic right vs wrong.
This in itself is a positive thing,or rather would be if we were living on mainland Europe.
We Are Not.

What we have at present is an administration which finds itself very publicly humiliated each and every day on the M50 by a VERY oddly devised and constructed "Contract" between it and a private entity which so happens to be NTR/Westlink.

The somewhat "Close" associations between NTR and Central Administrations via the Roche Family and its Trust serve only to cast doubt over the essential worth of those contracts from a Public Good viewpoint.

My belief is essentially simple.
The Judicial Tribunals investigating various aspects of Irish Public Administration are still very much in operation,particularly the Mahon Tribunal.

The VERY close involvement of so many Mahon Tribunal "Names" such as Mr Liam Lawlor,Mr G.Redmond,Mr P Flynn and others with the initial phase of NTR`s WestLink project raises In MY mind serious questions as to the strength of purpose of the entire scheme.

I believe the contract between the Irish Government and NTR/Westlink to be at the very least "Tainted" by dubious intentions if not actual practices.

As a layperson I have serious difficulty with the scale of monetary remuneration which appears to be envisaged in order to "Buy Out" NTR`s original entitlements in this matter.

I believe that there are further serious questions which remain unanswered in relation to the lead up to the West Link bridge concept and particularly to the issues of land and access availibility in the vicinity of the Bridge as well as any large or strategic transfeers of ownership which took place in the immediate lead up to the West Link project.

Sadly,the laissez-faire attitude which begat WestLink has been reinforced as can be seen by the proliferation of "New" Multi-Nationals who have taken up the reins of Irish Primary Route Tolling,all of course in a totally uncoordinated and seperatist manner.

While this question rattles around in one`s head please consider the following.....

Saturday 17th Feb witnessed a very large and comprehensive Dublin City Council presence at Drumcondra Bridge inbound.
During the course of the day some VERY high quality reinstatement work was carried out in a textbook example of What ALL such work should entail.

The works in question took place almost directly outside the constituency office of An Taoiseach Mr B Aherne.

Given that the sane City Council is also responsible for the crazed and dangerous state of Leeson St at the approach to Leeson St Bridge is it now a prerequisite for a serving Taoiseach to have offices nearby before any PROPER remedial work is carried out to the carriageway.......or am I missing something essential here..???? :mad:

Is there a copy of this contract available online anywhere?

Bards

antoinolachtnai wrote:

hang on, where exactly is there an example of a technically successful large scale tolling system that is based on number-plate recognition?

City congestion charges in London uses number plate recognition

Lennoxschips

I actually was talking to someone who works on the toll bridge and even they were telling me that even they cant see how barrier-free tolling is going to work smoothly.

I'd say that somebody in that job is not too mad about electronic tolling.

bk

antoinolachtnai wrote:

hang on, where exactly is there an example of a technically successful large scale tolling system that is based on number-plate recognition?

Ehm, London City Congestion charging is probably the biggest tolling scheme in the world and it very successfully uses number-plate recognition.

The M50 would be an easy project in comparison, just one road being tolled, rather then hundreds.

antoinolachtnai

London has certainly been a big success from a congestion management point of view, but I'm not sure it's been all that successful from a technical toll-collection point of view... there are a lot of technical and legal issues with it. It is a daily toll, rather than a per-crossing toll. There is also a known problem with penalty notices being sent to the wrong people (due to misreads). It's damned hard for the LA to collect penalties from what I've heard.

The London system is really based on an honour system from what I can see, and the number-plate recognition just provides a degree of policing of it. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's important to be realistic about what the technology will actually deliver.

I guess this is why there is also talk of having some sort of 'tags' as well.

I would be interested to hear more about the Melbourne setup - couldn't find much on Google. about tolls on that road.

Victor

transylman wrote:

Is there a copy of this contract available online anywhere?

Some of it is referenced on www.nra.ie

westtip

said it before will say it again - introduce a swiss style second "motorway only" tax disc at a flat annual rate which everyone (even visitors from da nord, polaks, brits on a semi permanent here etc) has to display to use the motorways - and before all those old arguments about those who use the motorways most should pay for them - forget it - this is not the basis on which the standard tax disc is issued - And in any case we all "use" the motorways everytime we buy a newspaper or visit a supermarket (or any other shop), because the motorways mean the supply chain of all consumer goods, drugs and just about everything in our lives is improved. Tolls and PPPs are fundamentally the wrong approach - hey its just an opinion but there you go.