Lower motor-tax rates and toll charges for HGVs are being considered by the Government to see if they can encourage more hauliers to use motorways.
The move comes after a one-month toll holiday for HGVs on some motorways in the State in November that, according to Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar, led to an average 20 per cent increase in usage. For the Limerick Tunnel the rise was more than 70 per cent.
During the month, the Minister says, there was a significant reduction in the number of hauliers clogging small towns such as Slane in a bid to bypass tolls. He says the number of HGVs going through Slane in November was down 40 per cent.
The Minister says a working group with officials from the departments of Transport and Environment is looking at “motor tax and road charging for HGVs to see if there is a solution around motor tax, to encourage more hauliers to use the motorways”.
He describes the experiment to see if toll rates for HGVs are driving hauliers off motorways as instructive. The estimated €1.3 million cost of the tolls forgone will be met by the State.
The toll holiday was prompted by concern at the relatively low HGV traffic on some motorways and concern that goods vehicles were continuing to use towns and villages to avoid tolls. The routes included in the toll amnesty were the M1, M3 and M6 motorways and the Limerick Tunnel.
The next step would be to measure what proportion of hauliers who tried out the motorways decided to continue. “We are waiting to see, from December, how many hauliers decided to stay on the motorways.”
With regard to the wider issue of road charging, and its use in demand management, Varadkar admits that there is now significant southbound congestion on the M50. "I know this because I use it all the time to get to my constituency."
He says the NRA’s preferred solution is multipoint variable charging. “That is not my preferred solution; it just moves the problems on to the other roads.
“I am not saying congestion charging will never happen, but I am saying we need to look at this holistically.”
Part of that approach is to see improvements in public transport to offer commuters a genuine choice.
“Now we are out of the bailout we can dare to think of capital budgets for the first time in a long time.”
