Road tolls to increase for second time in under a year from January

Irish motorists are to be hit with a price hike for using the State’s tolled road network, with the costs climbing by at least 20 cent from the start of next month.

The increase is the second rolled out by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) in less than a year and will take the cost of a single return journey on one of the impacted roads to at least 80 cent more in January than in the same month last year.

The TII said it was basing the increase on the annual rate of inflation that was recorded at the end of August – which it put at 6.3 per cent.

There are ten toll roads on the national network – eight of which are operated under a “public-private partnership” (PPP) model and two are operated directly on behalf of TII – the M50 and Dublin Tunnel.

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For M50 and PPP toll roads, most car tolls are increasing by 20 cent per journey and heavy good vehicles tolls by 30 to 50 cent per journey, the TII said.

Dublin Tunnel toll charges for passenger cars are returning to 2009 levels for peak periods from €10 to €12 to preserve capacity for heavy goods vehicles accessing Dublin Port.

While few road users will escape the price rise, commuters who use the tolled road network and hauliers will pay the highest prices.

A commuter who uses the M50 to travel to and from work five days a week will be worse off by around €90 over a year when annual leave and public holidays are discounted.

Someone travelling from the west of the country to the east will see the cost of a return journey climbing by €1.20.

Hauliers will, however, pay the highest price. They are likely to face between three and four tolls on each journey and will see their annual costs climb by over €500 a year.

Just over 12 months ago, the TII announced toll increases for 2023 but they were delayed at the request of Government after a negative reaction to the increases during the winter cost-of-living crisis and did not come into effect until the end of June.

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