As our road network expands and improves, tolls will become an increasing cost in our motoring lives, argues Michael McAleer
Irish motorists have been fortunate to dodge paying tolls for decades, with only two in operation in the State since the 1980s.
However, the rapid expansion of our road network envisaged in the National Development Plan (NDP) - tripling our network of dual carriageway - will mean tolls are set to become an increasing reality.
From the debates so far it seems most parties accept the need to collect tolls. However, disagreements arise in assigning a raison d'être to the tolling process.
One side supports tolling as a means to ration road space, thereby reducing congestion, the number of cars on the roads and toxic emissions. Greener members of society argue that tolling represents a perfect way to ration road space. The Green Party supports tolls on the National Primary roads, but as a traffic management measure. They suggest locating the toll plazas on the approach roads to the M50 to discourage long distance commuting into the capital.
However, research currently under way in UCD suggests price sensitivity tends to be very low in transport in the absence of high-quality substitutes. So there is very little chance of tolls driving people onto public transport unless they are substantial, in which case only the poorer members of society suffer, while our roads become the racetrack for the rich.
What's more likely is that motorists will either stoically accept the toll charges, or attempt to evade them by remaining on the older road network. Dr Peter Clinch of UCD, co-author of the recently published book After the Celtic Tiger, says there is potential for conflict in the imposition of tolls: "You build a new road for people to use yet, by imposing a toll, you may discourage people from using it and instead push them onto the older network."
For others in the debate, tolling is simply a means of revenue collection. The money goes towards more road building. The NRA is under no illusion as to what it is after - money. According to the NRA's Gerry Murphy: "Tolls in Ireland are aimed at revenue generation, unlike other countries where they are designed to counteract congestion. In Ireland the aim is to move traffic more freely thanks to the provision of more road space, rather than forcing cars off the roads."
The idea of tolls reducing congestion will come as a surprise to many motorists who use the current toll plazas at Westlink and Eastlink bridges.
Long queues often snake back from the booths and drivers have resorted to using older routes across the city in order to avoid the toll booth tailbacks.
Mr Murphy accepts there are congestion problems at the two plazas, where operators National Toll Roads handle some 90,000 vehicles a day with annual toll revenue of €38 million.
"Both schemes are nearly 20 years old, and when they were first designed we never expected the sort of through traffic we have today."
He says that under the new contracts operators will be obliged to ensure that a maximum of six cars are in a queue for a pay station at any one time.
What's more, NTR have recently introduced Eazy Pass tags. These can be attached to the inside of the windscreen and the toll is automatically deducted from a prepaid account. Politicians are normally wary of introducing new charges to motorists. And rightly so, if the extra charges does not mean a reduction in other taxes. Motorists already contributed €899 million for the first four months of this year to the public purse through Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT), fuel tax, road tax and others, according to Cyril McHugh of SIMI. Now they must also pay to use large tracts of the road network.
THE current road-building element of the NDP, although it is already running behind schedule, foresees our network of dual carriageway increasing from 300 kms to 900 kms, according to Gerry Murphy, public private partnership manager at the National Roads Authority (NRA). This at a time when the downturn in the State's coffers means sharing the bill with private enterprise is increasingly important to the Government.
So the need for private capital. There are 11 Public Private Partnership (PPP) road projects in the plan, with a target of €1.27 billion of private sector finance to supplement exchequer and EU investment.
To entice private capital, the incentive is a 30-year operating contract to toll the roads, within limits of maximum pricing and revenue sharing clauses. For schemes where the toll income is not sufficient to finance the project, the operating firms can apply for Government subsidies as well.
Thankfully for Irish motorists, tolls here will be relatively lower than in other European states with two maximum charges for cars using the network; €1.40 for shorter stretches and €2.10 for much longer stretches. These will rise in line with the Consumer Price Index. So for a 220km journey from Galway to Dublin, a motorist will pay €4.20.