N18 - Limerick Tunnel & South Ring Road Phase II

Time will tell.
I suspect the taxpayer will be paying a lot of cash here.

mossym wrote: »

ah yes, the masses of tourists around these days

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/number-of-tourists-down-by-4250-a-day-126619.html

tear on year the roads are quieter during the summer with the schools off.

you think the tourists are more willing to use the tunnel to bypass traffic on a one off trip more so than those that have to sit in the traffic every day?

You must realise tourists also include irish people on holidays.

i will update again in a few months with the figures, suffice to say at the moment they are more than disappointed.

Maybe dropping the price to a €1 per journey may help with the flagging sales.

MYOB wrote: »

[/B]

No, they won't. Even should your backwards world of traffic flows exist, there is no "revenue floor" on this scheme. That exists on the M3 and M3 alone.

"The tourists" are outweighed, heavily, by the increased traffic in winter months caused by schools, the university, the IT and inclement weather.

Time will tell that you're horrendously wrong. Again.

Again incorrect. I like this guy

Fewer than 12,000 vehicles today and the taxpayer will make up the shortfall.

Furet wrote: »

With respect, the quality of your own posts is falling short of the standard normally encountered in this forum. Your posts consist of short statements bereft of any facts. You are speculating and not backing anything up whatsoever. Unless you can prove that the taxpayer will have to foot the bill should AADT in the tunnel fall catastrophically low, you should be prepared to gracefully accept correction when it is pointed out that you are wrong. To not do so constitutes trolling and soapboxing, both of which are frustrating and annoying for other posters, as well as against the forum's charter.

This will be my last post in this section.

Fewer than 12,000 vehicles a day and the tax-payer will pay. If you want proof, contact the tunnel authorities. I suspect no one will prove this incorrect. To call someone a liar for that demonstrates a considerable lack of intelligence.

To clear my name I had to go onto the internet and search to prove that the M3 is NOT the only project which includes a PPP traffic guarantee mechanism.

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=TRJ20091118.XML&Ex=All&Page=2


Deputy Cuffe asked a number of questions relating to public private partnership schemes being undertaken by the authority. The M3 PPP contract includes a traffic guarantee mechanism. The essence of such a mechanism, which is a common feature worldwide of large tolled infrastructure projects, is that where actual traffic levels on the road fall below predefined levels the contracting authority, in this case the NRA, makes certain payments to the concession company to compensate for the traffic shortfall up to the guaranteed level only. In the case of the M3, the traffic shortfall payments are subject to a number of conditions, the most substantial being that any payments made under it cannot be greater than 90% of debt service payments in any period when added to the toll revenues collected. This still leaves the concession company operating on a loss basis because it will have to fund ongoing operational costs as well as remaining debt service amounts. The rationale for introducing the traffic guarantee on the M3 scheme, although not on earlier schemes, arose due to its larger financial scale than the schemes in which the NRA had been involved previously. The scale of the private debt involved was approximately twice that of the earlier schemes. This traffic guarantee was solely developed with the final concession company but formed the basis upon which all of the companies and their banks tendered for the project. Ireland sought and received clearance from the European Commission for the guarantee.
The level of traffic guarantee set out in the PPP contract for the initial year of operation is a combined total for the two plazas of 25,250 vehicles per day. If the traffic levels are 25,000 and the debt level thresholds are contravened, the concessionaire would receive an additional payment of approximately €100,000. If the traffic levels are 35,000 no additional payment arises.
Deputy Cuffe also asked whether a traffic guarantee arises in any other PPP scheme procured to date. I can confirm that a traffic guarantee provision has been included in the Limerick tunnel PPP scheme. There were two reasons for its inclusion in this scheme, namely, to improve the bankability of a large and complex scheme and because the traffic modelling demonstrated that the forecast usage of the tolled tunnel varied considerably depending on assumptions about the implementation of Limerick City Council’s proposed city centre traffic management proposals. The NRA took the view that it would be inappropriate for tenders to take the element of traffic risk contingent on the implementation of the council’s city centre traffic management plan and that transferring such risk would not yield value for money. The traffic guarantee on the Limerick tunnel commences at 17,200 vehicles per day subject to debt levels provision. As the traffic guarantees diminish significantly with time both in terms of percent of forecast guaranteed and in terms of the outstanding debt level, the Government’s smarter travel policy, which post-dates the PPP contracts, is unlikely to be affected. The traffic guarantees for the Limerick project were also formally approved by the European Commission.