M50: Almost €3m lost in unpaid tolls by NI drivers
- Published
The M50 is an orbital route with barrier-free tolling running to the west of the Irish capital.
About €2.9m (£2.6m) has been written off in unpaid tolls involving Northern Ireland drivers on Dublin's M50 since 2015.
The M50 - Ireland's busiest motorway - is an orbital route with barrier-free tolling running to the west of the Irish capital.
About 52m tollable journeys were carried out last year on the road, bringing in €152m (£135m) in tolls.
About 1.4m of those journeys were made by NI-registered vehicles.
In 2018 and 2017, €500,000 (£445,000) was written off in each year, €700,000 (£623,000) was written off in 2016 and €1.15m (£1m) in 2015.
Incur a fine
Cars using the tolled section of the motorway are recorded by cameras on an overhead gantry.
Drivers pass beneath the cameras, which use vehicle recognition technology to record number plates.
The one-way toll for a car is €3.10 (£2.80) - or €2.10 (£1.90) if it has a pre-registered tag account.
Without a tag, drivers have to make a toll payment before 20:00 local time the day after their journey, or they will incur a fine.
Unpaid journeys made by a vehicle not registered within the Republic of Ireland will be passed to Euro Parking Collection, a pan-European collection agency authorised by eFlow, the tolling brand name of the company that manages the collection of the tolls.
State body Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) said every tollable passage on the M50 was pursued for payment "where possible" for both domestic and foreign vehicles.
A spokeswoman said compliance levels were increasing among those from Northern Ireland.
"This is down to increased public information activity in Northern Ireland and direct engagement with the tourism sector," said a TII spokeswoman.
"We have advertisements placed on a number of large digital screens at key locations in Belfast and Newry as well as poster formats at petrol stations and towns along the M1 and the northern side of the border.
"In addition to this, we have been increasing broad awareness of the M50 toll in Northern Ireland as well as awareness around how to pay and payment channels available."