Road toll revenues take €93m Covid hit

The “unprecedented impact on traffic volumes” from Covid-19 sent national toll revenues plummeting by €93 million to €259 million last year.

That is according to the Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) 2020 annual report, which starkly outlines the pandemic’s impact on the finances of the country’s tolled motorway network and the Luas.

The report states the pandemic “had an unprecedented impact on traffic volumes” as total national road toll revenues declined by 27 per cent, from €352 million to €259 million last year.

Toll income on Dublin's M50 declined by 23 per cent from €160 million to €123.8 million, while toll income on the Dublin Port Tunnel reduced by 47 per cent, from €22.9 million to €12 million.

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The annual average daily traffic for the M50 eFlow toll in 2020 was 109,150 trips, a reduction of 28 per cent on 2019 levels. TII said it expects toll revenues will be similarly impacted this year.

Luas revenue

The report also shows Luas revenues took a €55 million hit last year due to the pandemic. This arose from passenger journeys reducing by 60 per cent to 19.2 million, with revenues reducing by 59 per cent to €34.6 million.

The revenue shortfall was addressed by the provision of €30 million in public service obligation payments by the National Transport Authority.

Traffic volumes

Car traffic volumes across TII’s national road network reduced to about 30 per cent of pre-Covid levels during Q2 of 2020, with some recovery in the second half of 2020.

The Covid-19 drop in traffic contributed to a 25 per cent reduction in collisions causing injury on national roads last year and a 53 per cent reduction in road traffic collisions on the Luas network in 2020.

TII last year recorded a deficit of €30.9 million compared with an operating surplus of €109.25 million in 2019.

TII’s spend last year increased by 19 per cent, from €1.23 billion to €1.46 billion, as State funding rose 18 per cent to €1.3 billion.

The bulk of the spend at €1.1 billion went on road construction and improvement projects – a rise of 17 per cent on the €868.7 million spent under that heading in 2019. Numbers earning over €100,000 at TII last year totalled 47, compared with 39 in that earning bracket in 2019. Four of the 47 earned over €150,000.