The number of drivers using the M6 Toll has plummeted by more than 13 per cent in the past three months.
The latest traffic figures published by Midland Expressway, which operates the pay-as-you-go road, reveal that around 6,300 fewer drivers per day chose to use the motorway between April and June this year compared to the same period in 2007.
An average of 47,964 drivers a day took to the private motorway during the three month period last year, while just 41,635 used the route between April and June 2008, a drop of 6,329 motorists per day – or 13.2 per cent.
The dwindling user figures follow a similar drop during the first three months of 2008 in comparison to last year.
Operators Midland Expressway introduced price hikes at the beginning of the year and cars now pay £4.50 to use the road at peak times, with vans and HGVs forking out £9 to use the motorway between 6am and 11pm.
Cars paid £4 before the 12.5 per cent rise was introduced on January 1. After 11pm the toll drops to £3.50 per car.
But the company has put the drop in drivers down to roadworks being carried out on the M6 during 2007.
According to Midland Expressway, work to the southbound lanes of the M6 near Junction 8 saw more drivers opting to use the alternative M6 Toll road during the first half of last year.
In the absence of the roadworks, the private road has not experienced the same boost in numbers during 2008.
The motorway experienced a 9.9 per cent drop in user figures between January and March this year compared to 2007.
But Midland Expressway then said the fact that there were less working days at the beginning of this year than last was to blame for the falling figures.
The company’s chief executive Tom Fanning maintained at the time that the company did not believe price rises on the toll road were having a detrimental effect on traffic figures.
Mr Fanning said the drop was expected and that Midland Expressway was anticipating an increase in users throughout the year.
The M6 Toll opened in December 2003 to ease congestion through the gridlocked West Midlands. The road links the M6 and M42 to the south of Birmingham and the M6 north of Birmingham, bypassing the most congested section of the M6.
16 Comments
I think that the price is extremely high to use this Toll Road. I only use it when going on holiday but only grudgingly as I tow a caravan and then get charged the same rate as a lorry £9.00. Disgracful, why should a pay the same as a 24 wheeler lorry weighing probably 10 times as much. The prices need to be slashed to encourage people to use it more.
I don’t think Midland Expressway have any concept of basic supply and demand. When will they introduce a sensible pricing structure?
Nationalise the road, make it toll free & let the West Midlands get some proper benefit from this road. This would then take traffic of so called A Roads, that can’t cope with traffic, if forced off the M6 due to closures.
People moan about road tax & fuel costs , the last thing they are going to do shell out for tolls as well.
I used to live in Wales and commuted to Essex/Norfolk every weekend. I now live in Willenhall and still go to Norfolk fortnightly. I have never used the road at all.
This road always has been and always will be a total failure.
The article itself tells the full story “The M6 Toll opened in December 2003 to ease congestion through the gridlocked West Midlands”. There may be no roadworks on the M6 this year but the road is more congested than ever.
The price charged is completely out of proportion and it is just a shame that so much green belt land had to be destroyed in the process.
The whole thing is a government shambles as 5 siad it is doomed to failure from the off. How could anyone else not see this. Look after the rich again and screw the working man.
They just don’t get it do they? Way overpriced.
This is what happens when people on telephone number salaries try run a business like this, when its customers are having to exist on poverty wages, whose value are being depleted every day with increases in tax.
This is like our government ministers, how can they possibly represent us and understand how the working class live on an average £10.000 a year, when they are on over three hundred thousand a year.
If they want to charge motorists for using the toll road, then they should discount the road tax that we have already paid to the government.
The company that own this toll road didn’t have the land before they built the road, so what happened to the money that they must have paid for the land?????
Jim of Bearwood.
They seem to be doing a lot of denying don’t they?
The only sensible pricing structure is FREE.
They should do that as an experiment one day and see what happens.
If you don’t like paying the price, don’t use the road. Simple as that.
Those who want quick travel without delays will use it, those who don’t want to pay simply don’t use it.
Toll roads tend to cost a lot. This toll motorway cost a hell of a lot. Prices reflect the cost - including upkeep that has to be paid whether people use the road or not.
I’ve never used the road, and I never will as long as it’s a toll road. Let’s all stay off it, the company will go bust, and then the government can buy it for a quid and let us use it for nothing.
You can see how successful toll motorways are, by the way - after this one opened there were plans announced for a similar one in South Wales to relieve the M4. No-one applied to be allowed to build it…
Being disabled, I can use it for the bargain price of £15 for a 3 year period. If that was for everyone and not just the disabled, the road would be well used.
The reductions for regular use don’t go anywhere near cheap enough to encourage people to use it.
I also think that the Owners will run out of excuses soon. The drop is now down to “to roadworks being carried out on the M6 during 2007″? Or “the fact that there were less working days at the beginning of this year than last” was to blame for the falling figures!!!! Wow, haven’t we got 365 days in this year then? Oh no, I mis-counted. There are 366 in a leap year.
Wish I was paid, as someone said, a telephone number wage, to come up with rubbish reasoning like that!
So if we all hate having to *pay* (shock! horror!) to use the road - what’s the solution? At the moment on our roads we have rationing by gridlock (you can use the road, but you might well be stuck on it for several hours), and car use is climbing year by year, so when do we reach the tipping point where we need to ration car use by some other means?
I’m no fan of the toll road - shouldn’t have been built in the first place, all it has done is generate more traffic. The M6 is carrying as much traffic as it ever was, but now on top of that there’s the extra traffic using the M6(T). However…
The economics aren’t as simple as is being made out. Midland Expressway Ltd putting prices up doesn’t equate to them getting less revenue. It is possible to put the price up for something, demand drops, but overall revenue goes up. I don’t think MEL have a problem with the laws of supply and demand.
The idea that the toll road should become free is quite frankly bonkers. All that would do is generate a lot more traffic, and create serious bottlenecks at either end of the toll road.
Jim G of Bearwood - M6 Toll users are hardly on the poverty line. Quite the opposite I’d imagine, people pay the toll because the value of a quicker journey is greater to them than the cost of the toll.
The toll road meets a need. Over 40,000 vehicles a day that aren’t using the M6 on one of the busiest stretches. Can anyone say they’d prefer the traffic back on the M6 instead?
The company is unlikely to go bust anytime soon. If and when it does, the government could buy it (as could other companies) and run it as a toll road. I daresay no company would buy it at even a fraction of its price to run it for free. Apart from the government, including diverting other resources to maintain it.
I use the Toll Road maybe once a week or once a fortnight if I’m late and the road is almost empty at the time I travel. If the Toll was £1 I might use it both ways every day, but at £4.50 that would cost £45 a week! The road is overpriced and won’t be successful until the toll is dropped dramatically