TOLL INCOME ON the country’s busiest road, the M50, last year surged by nearly 11% to €190m on the back of an inflation linked increase in toll charges and higher traffic volumes.

The 2023 annual report by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) shows that the €190 million in toll income – which includes €12.4 million in penalty income – was €17.6 million ahead of the 2022 M50 toll income of €172.4 million.

TII initially announced that the toll increase for M50 and other tolled routes would come into effect from 1 January 2023.

However, this was deferred by six months by Government in late 2022 against the background of cost of living increases.

The new TII report states that the estimate of toll revenue foregone on the M50 between January 2023 and the end of June 2023 as a result of the Ministerial Direction was €7m.

In their joint accompanying statement to the annual report, TII chairman Gareth Llewellyn and ceo, Peter Walsh stated that the 2023 cost of deferral concerning all tolled routes was €14.6m and “was met from general taxation”.

They state that eFlow customers were the target of ‘Smishing’ cyber-attacks in the first half of the year and “with assistance from the Bank of Ireland fraud team, the identification and destruction of over 70 fake eFlow websites was achieved”.

The report states that the Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) for the M50 toll road was 156,028 trips in 2023, an increase of circa 5% on 2022.

On July 1st 2023, tolls on the M50 increased by 30% for cars without tags, bringing the toll paid to €3.50, while cars with video accounts saw an increase from €2.70 to €2.90.

The toll income for the M50 will be even higher for 2024 with a second inflation linked toll increase coming into force from January 1st this year with cars without tags hit by a 20c increase bringing the charge to €3.70 while cars with video accounts also increased by 20c to €3.10. Cars with tags also faced a 20c increase and they now pay €2.50.

The report states that during 2023 traffic volumes and revenue for the M50 eFlow Toll continued to grow, resuming the upward trajectory prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report states that in total, approximately 57 million passages were recorded on the M50 toll road which is an increase of 5% on the 2022 total of 54 million.

The overall estimated tolling compliance rate was 97.17% in 2023, a marginal improvement from 2022 of 97.02% as the toll operator Turas further settled into its role.

The TII report states that “the continued increase in traffic volumes, and, in particular, freight traffic, continues to pose operational challenges for the M50 corridor”.

The report adds: “Increasing congestion levels lead to broader economic challenges in the Greater Dublin Area. Congestion not only impacts the efficiency of the freight sector but carries an environmental cost in terms of higher emissions from slow moving or stalled freight traffic.”

The report states that the M50 “is the most heavily trafficked road in the country” and states that 1.6 billion kilometres were travelled by motorists on the route last year which was a 3% increase on 2022.

The sharp rise in traffic resulted in the number of traffic collisions rising from 698 to 737.

In terms of the costs of operating the M50 eFlow to TII, toll collection costs, bad debt charges and local authority rates for M50 eFlow last year totalled €54.69 million.

The report shows that toll income on the Dublin Port Tunnel also benefited from the toll price increases with toll income increasing by 21% from €22.3 million to €27 million.

The AADT for Dublin Tunnel in 2023 was 26,285, an increase of 12.6% over the 2022 total of 23,355.

The 2023 toll income was collected from 6.3m passages and represented an increase of 21% on the 5.3 million passengers in the previous year.

The report states that around two million domestic and foreign motorists use the M50 and Dublin Tunnel toll roads each year and the net revenues collected “are invested in the operation and maintenance of the national road network, reducing the pressure on Exchequer funding requirements”.

The spend by TII last year totalled €1.73 billion that included €1.56 billion on the road network and €143 million on light rail and metro.

TII also oversees the operation of LUAS and patronage on Luas red and green lines continued to increase in 2023 to approximately 48.2 million passenger journeys, representing an increase of 25% on 2022 and a return to 2019 levels

Numbers earning over €100,000 at TII last year totalled 60. The remuneration package for TII ceo, Peter Walsh last year increased from €202,000 to €215,000. Salary costs at TII last year increased from €22.47 million to €24.25 million.