Roads body seeks new revenue

The National Roads Authority is seeking advice on the potential to raise additional revenue from new tolls on existing roads.

The move follows the compilation of a study last year which recommended extending tolls on Dublin’s M50 and placing a second toll on the M9/N25 Dublin to Waterford route.

The authority placed a request for consultancy advice on the Government’s etenders website today. It is also seeking advice on how to maximise current revenue from its three directly-controlled toll operations.

These include the M50, the Dublin Port Tunnel and its “central clearing house” which provides for interoperability of toll tags among different tolled roads.

The etendering notice says the clearing facility handled toll transactions with a value of €90 million in 2010.

The NRA is understood to be ambitious to broaden the scope of the M50 tolling scheme from a single point, near the West Link bridges, to a pay-as-you-go system which would bring in huge numbers of other motorists who use parts of the M50 but do not cross the Liffey.

There is no toll on the M9 between Dublin and Waterford but there is a toll on the Suir Bridge which connects the southern end of the M9 to Waterford City. It is understood the NRA believes a toll on the northern section of the route would bring the motorway into line with other inter-urban motorways.

Other roads which have been previously mentioned as having the potential for tolls include the Jack Lynch Tunnel in Cork and a range of bypasses such as Youghal and Ballincollig in Co Cork, parts of the N52 around Tullamore, Co Offaly, and the Limerick to Tuam section of the Atlantic corridor.

The M17/18 Gort to Tuam scheme is one of three future public-private partnerships currently at development stage, but which are not currently envisaged as toll schemes. The other two are the N11 Arklow to Rathnew and N7 Newlands Cross combined scheme; and the M11/N25 Enniscorthy and New Ross bypasses.

A second toll on the N4, near Mullingar, would require development at level crossings at the Downs near Mullingar, while significant additional land would be required to build a toll plaza on the Roosky/Dromod bypass.

A number of the potential tolls would be difficult both practically and politically and Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney expressed trenchant opposition to suggestions that the Jack Lynch Tunnel might be tolled, when he was Fine Gael transport spokesman last year.

NRA figures recently revealed that the State is currently paying almost €500,000 a month to the private operators of the M3 motorway and the N18 Limerick Tunnel because traffic volumes have fallen short of anticipated levels.

The payments, which amount to an annualised €5.9 million, are more than four times the authority’s revenue share from all its other public-private partnership toll motorways.

Just two such roads constructed over the past decade at a cost of €8 billion are returning a payment to the State – the M1 and the M4.

However, the combined revenue here was just €1.47 million in 2010, the latest year for which figures are available.

Road pricing had been mentioned as a “demand management measure” as far back as the Platform For Change report, published by the Dublin Transportation office in 2001.