Another rip-off, today in the Examiner the Small Firms Association are reported as accusing the Govt. of more skullduggery over the lack of a VAT reclaim element in the new toll.

Quote :

Roads Authority accused of operating M50 toll rip-off
18/08/2008 - 07:42:04

The Small Firms Association is accusing the Government and the National Roads Authority of ripping off businesses via new tolling procedures on the M50.

The association says companies are being hit with a de-facto increase in tolls since the NRA took over responsibility for operating the system from National Toll Roads.

NTR's charges included VAT at 21%, which businesses were allowed to reclaim.

The SFA says the tolls have remained the same since the NRA took over, but the charges no longer have any VAT element.

It says this is a blatant stealth tax on businesses and "the latest example of a state rip-off".

Examiner

I predict that this is all going to end in tears

Well today e-tolls has announced that this is not going to work very well, that removing the toll booths will be agony and that we will begin to see a benefit in traffic flows from 2010.

So it looks like this whole farce is beginning in tears

AfricanDave wrote:

So it looks like this whole farce is beginning in tears

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/0828/1219869513683.html

Count down to the opening of the toll-gates ...
Which MN member is going to be the first to report on the experience ? and who will be the first to collect a fine ??

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Right, I've just learned they also charge €1 per month account administration for both types of account. I thought it was only for the tag account.

And also they automatically top-up your account when the balance hits €12. Which means you can never use that €12.

WTF ?

I would like to know how these guys get my car registration details and address if I choose not to register, and what gives them the right to do so.

That question, according to this morning's news, is going to be referred to the Data Protection body for a view. Wouldn't you think they might have cleared that up before they went ahead with the system ?

We may yet see those gates go up again.

cactus flower wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Right, I've just learned they also charge €1 per month account administration for both types of account. I thought it was only for the tag account.

And also they automatically top-up your account when the balance hits €12. Which means you can never use that €12.

WTF ?

I would like to know how these guys get my car registration details and address if I choose not to register, and what gives them the right to do so.

That question, according to this morning's news, is going to be referred to the Data Protection body for a view. Wouldn't you think they might have cleared that up before they went ahead with the system ?

We may yet see those gates go up again.

Well it is possible it has been cleared up. They would require a bye-law or some other instrument to allow the NRA to collect this data. But it's good to hear someone else is asking the question.

I noticed all the commentary over the past few days is all about how well everything is working. And the little preempt comments abouth teething problems.
No mention of the fact that we have ALREADY paid 300Million for this shite and will continue to pay vastly more than this up to 2020.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Right, I've just learned they also charge €1 per month account administration for both types of account. I thought it was only for the tag account.

And also they automatically top-up your account when the balance hits €12. Which means you can never use that €12.

WTF ?

I would like to know how these guys get my car registration details and address if I choose not to register, and what gives them the right to do so.

That question, according to this morning's news, is going to be referred to the Data Protection body for a view. Wouldn't you think they might have cleared that up before they went ahead with the system ?

We may yet see those gates go up again.

Well it is possible it has been cleared up. They would require a bye-law or some other instrument to allow the NRA to collect this data. But it's good to hear someone else is asking the question.

I noticed all the commentary over the past few days is all about how well everything is working. And the little preempt comments abouth teething problems.
No mention of the fact that we have ALREADY paid 300Million for this shite and will continue to pay vastly more than this up to 2020.

.......in order to pay for this sort of nonsense!

Tanaiste Mary Coughlan's pay goes up by €5,984 from €239,341 to €245,325

(from today's Irish Independent)

Slim Buddha wrote:

.......in order to pay for this sort of nonsense!

Tanaiste Mary Coughlan's pay goes up by €5,984 from €239,341 to €245,325

(from today's Irish Independent)

That is the kind of thing that can continue unabated while the taxpayer is being brought down to the shop for candyfloss.

breaking news.ie wrote:

Traffic is moving freely on the M50 this morning, on the first weekday of barrier-free tolling.

The new eFlow scheme came into effect on Saturday morning and there have been no major difficulties so far.

Works are underway this week to dismantle the tolling station itself which is expected to take up to eight weeks.

Hugh Creegan from the National Roads Authority has said the work is going to schedule.

"The
key thing for us was getting the lanes open on the roads and now that
they are, they can deal with the traffic coming," he said.

See, this is what I mean. They have constructed a big cloud of distraction around the real questions. How much money is private companies making out of this ? How much money did Tom Roche and the NTR boys make out of this ? Are small business and commuters getting screwed still ? Are our data protection rights being breached?

Who fucking cares if the tags work or not. Who cares if the work is going to schedule. That's just a mini circus to hide the fact that the whole affair is a disgrace.

The media are just as bad with their line toeing editorial crap.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

See, this is what I mean. They have constructed a big cloud of distraction around the real questions. How much money is private companies making out of this ? How much money did Tom Roche and the NTR boys make out of this ? Are small business and commuters getting screwed still ? Are our data protection rights being breached?

Does anyone know what this bridge will have cost in total by the 2020 date given? And it will never go back to the state will it?

Here's my estimation for tolls paid from 1991 to 2007 based on an empirical per annum increase of toll price and usage.

Year Toll Cars € per year
1.09 1.24

1991 0.55 3000 €602,250
1992 0.60 3720.00 €810,267
1993 0.65 4612.80 €1,090,133
1994 0.70 5719.87 €1,466,666
1995 0.76 7092.64 €1,973,252
1996 0.83 8794.88 €2,654,813
1997 0.90 10905.65 €3,571,785
1998 0.97 13523.00 €4,805,480
1999 1.06 16768.52 €6,465,293
2000 1.15 20792.96 €8,698,405
2001 1.24 25783.28 €11,702,834
2002 1.35 31971.26 €15,744,993
2003 1.46 39644.37 €21,183,313
2004 1.59 49159.01 €28,500,030
2005 1.72 60957.18 €38,343,940
2006 1.87 75586.90 €51,587,937
2007 2.03 93727.76 €69,406,410


Total € €268,607,800

If that toll increase rate continues until 2020, with the usage staying static at 100,000 cars per day :

2007	2.03	93727.76	€69,406,410
2008	2.20	100000.00	€80,345,416
2009	2.39	100000.00	€87,174,776
2010	2.59	100000.00	€94,584,632
2011	2.81	100000.00	€102,624,326
2012	3.05	100000.00	€111,347,394
2013	3.31	100000.00	€120,811,922
2014	3.59	100000.00	€131,080,935
2015	3.90	100000.00	€142,222,815
2016	4.23	100000.00	€154,311,754
2017	4.59	100000.00	€167,428,253
2018	4.98	100000.00	€181,659,655
2019	5.40	100000.00	€197,100,726
2020	5.86	100000.00	€213,854,287
	Total since 1991		€2,053,154,692

2 BILLION QUID.

So if this continues, the 600Million paid to NTR last year would actually be repaid by 2014.
The remaining 6 years, 2015 to 2020 would constitute 1 Billion in profit.

The backdrop of all this is that the bridge cost 30 Million.
Yes, I know it is being upgraded to 4 lanes. But the lanes were never the problem, the junctions were, and the tolls were.

Would the lane have been unneccessary without the tolls?

The story according to the AA is that 70 million will be raised in tolls each year of which 20 million a year will go in "Administration Costs" including profits of various firms.

They are also supposedly going to be lenient with people in the begninning...

**cactus post directly above

Thanks for doing those sums - there must be official figures and I wonder how different they are from yours? 1 billion is a truckload of money for nothing and your chicks for free - are those numbers including salaries of Merc-driving executives, operators at the gates, construction, deconstruction etc. ? Of course any profits will be justified in terms of interest too.

The official figures are known, I wonder where we get them, are they explicitly calculated and I wonder who negotiates these deals with private contractors?

The Limerick Tunnel is opening in 2009 or 2010, will be in private hands for 35 years and has already cost between 500 and 700 million depending on who you talk to. The charge will be around €2.50 but the car volume isn't known yet but I'd say it'd be closer to the M50 toll at the start of it's life than at the end - 100,000 cars per day - what an enormous quantity of cars !

Those figures are my estimations of gross toll revenue.

Quote :

Study: Two out of three satisfied with barrier-free tolling Print

A new survey has found that two out of three motorists feel the new barrier-free toll system will improve traffic flow on the M50 in Dublin.

However three out of four think the payment system won't work effectively.

The same study, for an on-line car parts retailer, also found that only a fifth of people would be encouraged by the new system to use the M50.

Anyone used it yet?

No, not yet. But I heard the M50 was again chaotic this morning.

They can blame the roadworks for another while, then they will discover what was there all along, it's the junctions.

Case in point M25 around London.

Still, there may be fewer people using it because they can't or won't pay the 3 euro +

We haven't used the M50 for years. It is far quicker going through town for us.

I was up near Slane on the weekend though so I went around it for the fun of it just to see how the barrier free was getting along. We registered our cars for the video account, reads your reg plate and charges you 2.50 each time. Very difficult to see where the cameras were.

i WOULD EXPECT TO FIND THE CAMERAS ON GANTRIES QUITE A DISTANCE BEFORE AND AFTER THE BRIDGE ITSELF. pOSSIBLY COUPLE - shit caps lock - of hundred meters each side.

They had gantries so I knew where they were, just couldn't see any cameras on them.

johnfás wrote:

They had gantries so I knew where they were, just couldn't see any cameras on them.

Oh. Maybe there aren't any . Authority through fear.

M50 tolling system misreads details of 10,000 cars a day

Quote :

DUBLIN'S NEW barrier-free tolling system on the M50 failed to operate correctly, in the first week of the introduction of the new system, for about 20,000 vehicles a day.

The failure rate has dropped since then, but still stands at about 10,000 vehicles a day, or 10 per cent of all West-Link traffic.

According to the Department of Transport, the failure rate results from the system failing to read tags or misreading them, failures in reading number plates and human error in matching photos of number plates with registered tag holders.

Failures were also caused by "back office" systems. These included tags not being read by the new sensors on an overhead gantry about 500 metres north of the former toll plaza.

...

Motorists whose cars were demonstrably not on the M50 complained that they had received bills for journeys they did not make.

But

A National Roads Authority spokesman said: "We are eliminating the errors all the time." He added that, when bedded in, the new electronic tolling system would be "the finest in the world".

Anyone used it yet?