Congestion charges here 'inevitable'

Congestion charges are inevitable for private cars using the expanded M50 and travelling into Dublin city centre over the next few years, according to the head of the Dublin Transport Office (DTO).

John Henry, director of the DTO, said car usage had to be curtailed along the M50 and into the city to prevent them becoming gridlocked. The only effective way to do this was through congestion charges, he said.

The DTO has responsibility for formulating traffic policy for the greater Dublin Area and is soon to be amalgamated into the new Dublin Transport Authority.

Henry said its traffic studies showed it was inevitable that the upgraded M50 would quickly return to being a car park. "There is a simple choice: car park or motorway. To have a motorway you have to control it."

He said continually expanding the capacity of the road network was not the answer because new roads inevitably became congested. The M50 upgrade started this month and will cost €1.1 billion, taking five years to complete, according to the National Roads Authority.

"People talk about the Westlink toll being the main problem, but traffic slows to a standstill on the M50 regardless of the toll and it will happen when that toll is removed. It will keep happening unless we manage the traffic using the road. The only way to do this is to use tolls."

However, Henry says any new tolling system would be much more sophisticated than the Westlink and would not contribute to traffic delays.

Rather than using a natural bottleneck such as the Westlink bridge, he said the new tolling system could use GPS technology to charge a vehicle when it joined the M50. The driver would be charged depending on how far they travelled on the M50, with the GPS system monitoring when the car left the M50.

"You have to limit usage of the M50 to what it can handle otherwise you have wasted your €1 billion investment." He said a similar system could be applied to the entry points to the city over the canals.

As part of the planning approval for the M50 upgrade the NRA is required to publish a demand management plan within three years after the work is complete. The Department of Transport said last night that any decision on congestion charges would have to await the publication of this report.

He admits there is likely to be strong public opposition to congestion charges but said a "user pays system" would be more equitable than current tolling mechanisms. "Sure, it will face resistance, but it will come in. The point is you pay relative to how much you travel, rather than a blanket charge."

A sophisticated charging regime would allow the system to be "tax neutral", he said, with increased revenues from congestion charges offset against lower VRT or fuel taxes.

Motorists would have the option of buying credit or paying a weekly or monthly congestion charge bill, in much the same way as paying for a mobile phone.

"The technology to do this is already available. We have run a pilot study on behalf of the European Space Agency to test a system for charging motorists.

"All we are waiting on is new satellites. The Galileo satellite navigation project will be ready in 2012. The Space Agency wanted to see how their satellites could be used."

He said Ireland was a perfect country in which to run a large scale pilot of GPS-based congestion charges. "Ireland would be perfect. You could convert all cars to having GPS technology in five years and require that new cars have inbuilt black boxes". Older cars could be fitted with these devices through the NCT.

Despite pleas from the business community for immediate measures to alleviate congestion in Dublin, he said congestion charges would have to wait until the public transport network could offer an alternative.

"People will still use their cars to the extent that they cause congestion, because they are comfortable and flexible. Demand management, which includes congestion charging is to try and get people to change their mode of transport." Following a DTO recommendation, local authorities now impose a strict maximum limit on the number of office parking spaces, as part of a long-term strategy to constrain commuting by car. "These land use changes are part of a process to transform the city from a low-density city to a high-density one."