[PR] Eflow.ie - information on M50 tolling regime

Random

Carawaystick wrote: »

the port tunnel is the M50 also.

What do you mean?

L1011

Carawaystick wrote: »

the port tunnel is the M50 also.

Good point, if ever so slightly pedantic

Anyway, they don't issue their own tags... just rebadged eTrip ones.

Carawaystick

MYOB listed out a series of roads and the tags and toll companies. I pointed out that the port tunnel is part of the M50 also.
The M50 starts at the junction with East Wall road, through the tunnel, along what used to be the M1 to the junction with the N/M32 and the rest of the "m50"
hence talking about the M50 northbound as a single side of the road is a nonsense.

In (or around) France cities, directions are interior and exterior.

Glenbhoy

I've been on to all the various operators today to see which offers the best value, imo it's eazypass. The wife and I both need tags, we probably use M50 about 5/6 times each per month (her sometimes much more), so the video payment scheme doesn't seem like an option.
I found the following:
Eazypass the best value for us, although having to top up by €80 each time the account balance gets to €10 seems a bit excessive (€40 per car, the logic escapes me too). It's €1+vat per month for the rental/admin/insurance for the two tags and €2 per journey. (anyone know why they don't quote the vat when selling to individuals??).
Eflow appears to be the next best, it's €1 (VAT incl) per tag and you have the option to pay at the end of the month based on usage, which is obviously a big plus over the eazypass system.
Etrip appears to be pretty bad value, to rent the tags it costs €2.12 for 2 (€1.21 for one), again it's a prepay system with your account topping up when it reaches €12 by a minimum of €36. You can buy the tags for €30 upfront, but still have to pay an admin fee of 50c+VAT per month for one tag (75c + vat for 2 tags).
If you use the rathcormack or m4 tolls regularly, i'd consider either of these as they both give discounts for using their tolled roads, I think it's 10% free if you buy 20 jouneys upfront, and their other costs compare reasonably well with eazypass and eflow.
Anyone any other thoughts?

Skyhater

Did you look at TollTag.ie. This is the same crowd that manage the QuickPark payment system at Dublin airport.

They seem good value, for whatever option you use.

Personally, as i use the various tool roads infrequently, the "Pay as you Tool" (Buy tag for €30; 10% management fee/toll; no minimum top-up) or "Pay as you Tool+" (Get tag for free; 10% management fee/toll; €20 minimum top-up, €12 min balance) would be my preferred option.

(See here for Price Table)

Worth a look!!!

TheBigLebowski

What the hell is this minimum balance crap all about? What does it matter what your balance is along as you have enough to cover your trip. If you keep your tag indefinately, you are basically just giving them €12 (or whatever minimum balance is) for free.

Random

TheBigLebowski wrote: »

What the hell is this minimum balance crap all about? What does it matter what your balance is along as you have enough to cover your trip. If you keep your tag indefinately, you are basically just giving them €12 (or whatever minimum balance is) for free.

Which they pop in a big bank account and make loads of interest off

Skyhater

Wonder is it worth a complaint to the national consumer agency (or whatever regularity body)???

If they expect us to maintain a minimum balance, they should waive the monthly fee at least. The admin fees should be part of the toll price! not an additional charge.

AlekSmart

I hope I`m mistaken but the bumph sent out by Tolltag.ie includes the NRA and relevant bye-laws which appear to suggest a base Toll of €2.

However it also mentions a default basis which begins with a Base Toll of €2 PLUS €3.
This appears to suggest the total for anybody not shelling out immediately via electronic menas will be €5 ???
Can anybody offer an opinion on this ?
Also it seems as if the small commercial/car type machines will now be regarded as Commercials for Toll purposes IRRESPECTIVE of their Road Taxation status.

Oh well...the condemned ate a hearty breakfast before donating their remaining monies to the Càirde Faìl top up fund :eek:

Random

Skyhater wrote: »

Wonder is it worth a complaint to the national consumer agency (or whatever regularity body)???

If you think it'll help, let us know how you get on. Hope it does.

Our man in Havana

Also it seems as if the small commercial/car type machines will now be regarded as Commercials for Toll purposes IRRESPECTIVE of their Road Taxation status.

That is bound to be unlawful.

L1011

TheBigLebowski wrote: »

What the hell is this minimum balance crap all about? What does it matter what your balance is along as you have enough to cover your trip. If you keep your tag indefinately, you are basically just giving them €12 (or whatever minimum balance is) for free.

I suspect its to ensure you don't get locked out at a gate if your bank can't be contacted for a specific payment - and currently €12 is the maximum fee a single toll transaction can be on a private car (Port Tunnel at a very, very bad time of day).

Also, can you imagine the latency there'd be involved in processing every transaction seperately? Wouldn't work at barriers, thats for sure.

However, it doesn't justify why my tag operator charges THIRTY SIX EURO as their minimum balance :mad::mad:

L1011

AlekSmart wrote: »

However it also mentions a default basis which begins with a Base Toll of €2 PLUS €3.
This appears to suggest the total for anybody not shelling out immediately via electronic menas will be €5 ???
Can anybody offer an opinion on this ?

eflow.ie:

"The trip must be paid for before 8pm the following day or you will receive a notice in the post. This notice will ask you to pay your bill plus a €3 default toll. "

So, yes, I suspect that is what it means - if you get the paper bill and pay it quickly its a fiver, then it racks up.

I was trying to video-register my parents cars for them there and the bastarding website won't accept my web browser (Safari 3) and tells me to download Internet Explorer (not possible) or Firefox (ideally would prefer not to)...

Our man in Havana

MYOB wrote: »

However, it doesn't justify why my tag operator charges THIRTY SIX EURO as their minimum balance :mad::mad:

Is €36 not the minimum topup? I assume you have an etrip tag like myself?
The min balance is €12.70 afaik.

L1011

Bond-007 wrote: »

Is €36 not the minimum topup? I assume you have an etrip tag like myself?
The min balance is €12.70 afaik.

...I think you're right, and I've gone ranting based off thinking backwards again

Ah well, too late to delete the post and pretend it didn't happen.

giveth

Aren't the express lanes in other toll plazas going to get extremely congested now that most dublin drivers will have electronic toll tags for the M50?

I'm not sure the single lane express lanes on the M4/M8/M1 will be so "express" anymore....

Any plans to build more express lanes on these routes?

L1011

giveth wrote: »

Aren't the express lanes in other toll plazas going to get extremely congested now that most dublin drivers will have electronic toll tags for the M50?

I'm not sure the single lane express lanes on the M4/M8/M1 will be so "express" anymore....

Any plans to build more express lanes on these routes?

Due to the fact that you don't have to stop at these lanes on those roads, its not going to impact it heavily. You can also go through the non-express lanes with a tag, remember. Due to the M50's layout and me living along the M4 I never got to use the 'express' lane for tags as I could never cut across that many lanes!

philiph

Hi,

First of all I'm going to 'fess up. I am a director of TollTag.ie one of the providers of tolltags for the new M50 (and any other toll road- same tag). but I'll keep this straight down the middle and in a personal capacity. We get, I kid you not thousands of emails on the subject and a lot of the same issues pop up repeatedly so I'm kinda hoping getting the message out there will help.

second of all check out www.tagcompare.ie this is a little known (as yet) NRA operated site to compare tags and tag providers. One caveat, it has been a few weeks since we updated our info on that site and our site (and I presume the others listed on tagcompare) will probably have more current info but at least it lays out the entire field and saves a lot of googling.

I see from the posts a lot of traffic regarding monthly fee's etc, again tagcompare will shed some light there and whatever supplier interests you, check their actual site for updates but not all tags have monthly fees, similarly minimum topups/balances etc vary

One other thing of note is that e-trip has acquired easypass in the last week or so meaning there is effectively one less choice of provider assuming they harmonise their operations at some point.

I hope i havent simply added to the 'noise' and perhaps given some of you a route to find out who is out there and what they offer. Sure, tags are not for all, neither is video payment, and when you figure out which of those two suits best then for video there is only one show in town, for tags, several

Tks /P

anotherlostie

Have tolltag started sending out their tags yet? I signed up a couple of weeks ago and have heard nothing since.

philiph

Hi,

I cant tell who you are from the board:) email info@tolltag.ie and they will reply or mail me. the ship date for tags tested on shiny new M50 is 15/08.

/P

following on from the above...

Has anyone received their eflow tags yet?

anotherlostie

philiph wrote: »

Hi,

I cant tell who you are from the board:) email info@tolltag.ie and they will reply or mail me. the ship date for tags tested on shiny new M50 is 15/08.

/P

No, I didn't expect you to channel who I was from my comment, but you have answered the question, as I now know roughly when to expect it!

Stark

Deleted User wrote: »

following on from the above...

Has anyone received their eflow tags yet?

following on from the above...

Is it the 15th of August yet?

MDTyKe

To note, maybe someone can help with this...

But I recall reading on a government law site, or somewhere, that if you purchase in advance 20x trips, you MUST receive a discount.

In essence, by topping up this tag thing wiht an amount, are you not seemingly doing the above? And hence eligible for some kind of discount..

L1011

MDTyKe wrote: »

To note, maybe someone can help with this...

But I recall reading on a government law site, or somewhere, that if you purchase in advance 20x trips, you MUST receive a discount.

In essence, by topping up this tag thing wiht an amount, are you not seemingly doing the above? And hence eligible for some kind of discount..

The standard topup amount doesn't cover 20 trips on any road; and you can use the stored value on any tollroad not just one so they can avoid this... both the M4 and M8 schemes offer this if you store value for just their specific roads but the M50 (x2), M1 and East Link don't.

Stark

Stark wrote: »

following on from the above...

Is it the 15th of August yet?

:rolleyes:
eflow are a different company, unless all the companies are using and delivering the same tag on the same day!

maclek

Wow, that toll compare site is complete rubbish. It is really difficult to navigate and then there's no real way to compare.

Some information is missing, for example the fact that tolltag.ie charge you 10% surcharge for each toll on certain plans. Not saying the surchange is a bad thing, it just isn't mentioned as far as I can see.

What we really need is a site where you can enter how many times you plan on going through the m50 per week, month or year and how much it will cost you per annum on each of the plans, including doing the video thing.

Red Alert

The e-flow site is appalling and seems to have been deliberately designed not to work with Mac computers. What is clear is that e-Flow hired web developers who can't keep to a simple standard - not a great show for a site asking for credit card details.

Tip for Mac users: in safari, enable the 'Developer' menu, then change your user agent. The site will work mostly OK then.

Irish and Proud

Stark wrote: »

following on from the above...

Is it the 15th of August yet?

I think you mean the 30th!

See here...

http://eflow.ie/home/default.aspx

Regards!