Increasing tolls when cost of operations at booths is plummeting

Interesting that the state owned road tolls are being increased by 9%, though they have discretion to forego any such rises. It kind of undermines any argument that the state makes where cost increases should be sucked up, and not passed on through higher prices/wages, potentially leading to an inflation spiral. If anything, the state should be taking the lead to avoid that.

Pretty much eternal ongoing maintenance on all of them. They have to kept to a specific standard, much higher than TII enforces on it's own roads, and the entire surface has to be replaced less than 10 years before the end of the contract in most cases.

The m50, which has a maintenance contract, has constant partial overlays of specific lanes as they begin to wear

This is just pure corporate greed, Govt did not see this one coming apparently. Big shock there , they havent a clue whats going on most of the time, lol

What will happen here is motorists and heavier vehicles like rigids, trucks , HGV will not use the by passes and will revert to going through the towns to avoid the tolls.

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2022/1117/1336621-tolls-ireland/

Dont forget VRT :)

The construction cost has been borne but the debt to build it with probably hasn't been paid back yet and has ongoing repayments and interests.

The Waterford bypass will probably never pay its loans back. It isn't covering interest, the opco loses money every year. They're nearly halfway to when they have to hand it back now.

Without checking, I imagine the M1 and M4/M6 are doing well but the others... not so much. The M3 and N18 get some minimum traffic guarantees, pre-COVID the M3's wasn't paying out anymore as they had gone over the minimum - I don't know about now as it won't be in the TII accounts for a year or two.

DPT and M50 are owned by the state and operated under contract, East Link is owned by the Council as it reverted when its contract expired.

Its not really when calculated on an annual basis and added onto the already over loaded extra expense people have to pay in this country. So can we say lets cut politicians wage to the same amount as its only a paltry cut? Stupid argument the amount is not the issue.

Lots of the M1 has been done recently, the CRG PPP section is from Junction 7 to Junction 18, anything outside of that is nothing to do with the M1 toll.

I drove both ways the other day & can't say I noticed anything bordering on rough.

https://www.tii.ie/roads-tolling/projects-and-improvements/ppp/

Facts will only go so far in this argument: Road Tolls are one of those things that gets the call-Joe-Duffy reflex going in lots of people, but as noted, as a State, we win as often as we lose on these deals.

Our tolls aren't even high by international standards. One thing I saw in Texas (Dallas) is that they have managed toll lanes: there are tolled lanes on the main highway, which you pay a toll to use, but the road operator guarantees that you will have a minimum travel speed of 50 mph while on those lanes. To keep this promise, they use demand pricing, so the price to use the toll-road goes up as the number of users on the road increases (or rather, as the average speed falls closer to 50mph). At peak periods, tolls can hit $20.

Point tolls (like the M50 tollgate) are falling out of favour these days, and "Road Usage Pricing" is the new buzzword: you pay a fee based on how much of the road you use, not just because you passed one short tolled barrier. TII was looking for interested parties for a pilot on M50 for this. The advantage is that it stops toll-dodgers creating traffic jams on parallel routes, and the disadvantage (not really a disadvantage, tbh) is that the people who'd been getting a free ride because their journey didn't pass the tollgate end up having to pay their share too.

Why are so many ignoring the cost of debt on financing the roads. This is by far the biggest costs these tolls are financing. As interest rates go up, so does the cost of debt.

Another poster complaining about the government upping prices while complaining about the private sector doing so. These price increases are baked into contracts with toll operators with tolls costs linked to interest rates and inflationary increases. No way around these without government reneging on contracts. Renege on a contract and say bye bye to any future PPP roads.

People like you need to educate yourself on how much Irish citizens paid in tax over the last 2 decades not to mention borrowing almost 250Billion on top. This is the last word on this anyone spouting we should be paying more in tolls has a vested interest that they are not willing to share. We have paid for roads over and above in taxes and borrowings already - toll roads should be a thing of the past. We need an explanation as to where all of this money has gone from government before anyone imposes any extra taxes or tolls.

Any discussion on tolls needs to be taken in the context of what people are already paying. Right on cue will you go and do one. We are paying income tax and pay it at a very high rate at a very low level of income that should cover all roads. Then we are also paying car tax that should cover roads again and we are also paying tolls on roads that using the first 2 taxes I mentioned have already been paid for. How much more should we have to pay for infrastructure that is vital to the country and which has already been paid for and pointing to other countries and saying ahh but the US pay this or France pay that is utter nonsense. Like I say someone in power needs to explain where the 90 Billion in taxes paid into the coughers this year has gone? Where the 240/250 billion we have borrowed over last decade and a half has gone and why as a person living and working here my rights to a decent public service has been diminished continuously as has the % of cash I have left in my pocket after tax over the last 2 decades due to paying all of the above taxes and other stealth costs like bin collection which used to be paid for out of general taxation and because I work I don't have free access to any service and I have to pay again to cover things like health care, etc. So see your cue my friend go find a pool table and play with your balls as you cannot be serious about a debate if you leave possibly the most important detail out of this discussion as in what we already pay.

I don't think there's any way round the toll increases for privately contracted roads. It's the state owned ones where there is some flexibility and the busiest toll road by a country mile is the M50.

Option 5 - keep the Tolls as they are and divert funding from Departmental underspend in other functions in 2022, or from the current budget (income) surplus already accrued in 2022.

I would suggest they see to it quick as well, as I get the feeling the normally patient and stoic Irish people will begin taking lessons from our French cousins if these unjustifiable increases keep being foisted on ordinary tax payers.

Exactly I won't be expecting my groceries to go up as a result.

😂