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It's time to nationalise the M6 toll. The numbers are falling, the prices are rising. It was a bold plan that hasn't worked, says Insider
The time has come to nationalise the M6 toll. There simply aren't enough vehicles using what's turning out to be an expensive folly.
It's emptiness is obvious on the occasional journeys I make on it, but the unassailable evidence is in the stats. In the second quarter this year, average daily vehicle numbers dropped by 13.2% from the same time last year.
The M6 toll website is kind enough to supply more figures that point to its general unpopularity. From its twin peaks of 54,000 vehicles per day in the third quarter of 2004 and 2006, the average daily tally is now 42,000. Those sort of figures really don't back up the company's statement that the 27-mile experiment "has grown from strength to strength".
The reason is fairly obvious. It's just too expensive. The 50p rise for cars to £4.50 this year was a pretty crass solution to the shortfall in revenue, given that it's costliness was the reason people weren't using it in the numbers expected. It's even worse for vans. They're now paying £9 a trip, the same price at HGVs and coaches and not a sum I'll ever sanction for my fleet.
It also winds me up how the toll is given its own advertising along the stretch of the M6 from Stafford, delivered by the official gantry signs. "M6 toll clear" it says, usually followed by dire warnings about the state of traffic along the Birmingham stretch of the M6. Of course it's clear! It's the M6 toll! That's like saying the weather in LA today will be sunny, or there's a likelihood your plane will be held up at Heathrow. It's a self-evident truth. And if the main M6 is closed for any reason and you're forced down the toll, you still have to pay.
The obvious answer is do what they did with the Skye bridge. Dismantle the tolls, pay off the private company and fully integrate it into the road network. It won't be popular with some lobbies, but they surely can't be happy with the continued presence of a private motorway run exclusively for the rich. And you do have to be rich to use it twice a day.
Failing that, then introduce some form of volume-weighted payment system. If no-one's using it, the price comes down. If it's getting busier the price goes up. The price could be displayed on those gantry boards that seem to work exclusively for the toll anyway, and tempt people in that way. The current system just isn't working. If it couldn't build traffic in periods of prosperity, it's never going to times of hardship.
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