The toll charge for using the Dublin Port Tunnel at weekends is to be halved to €3 following a decision by the board of the National Roads Authority (NRA) yesterday.
The decision was taken after a review of traffic volumes in the tunnel found that the number of heavy goods vehicles using the tunnel at weekends was significantly lower than weekdays.
A date for the introduction of the new charges will be set following discussions between the NRA, Dublin City Council and An Garda. However, it is also understood that further reviews of toll charges for the tunnel have been ruled out until the M50 upgrade has been completed. An estimated 13,000 vehicles use the tunnel each weekday but this falls to an average of 4,800 vehicles on Saturdays and just 4,000 on Sundays.
Under the new pricing plan, cars using the tunnel will pay €3 from 10pm on Fridays until 6am on Mondays.
The new toll pricing will apply to cars, taxis, motorcycles, vans and light commercial vehicles of less than 3.5 tonnes. The new toll rates will also apply on public holidays.
This will replace the existing toll under which drivers must pay €6 to use the tunnel between 6am and 10pm at weekends, with the charge falling to €3 outside those times.
AA public affairs manager Conor Faughnan said the tolls for the Port Tunnel were the only road charging that his organisation supported.
He said the toll system had been designed to be flexible and said in future tolls costs should fluctuate depending on usage patterns.
"The toll system was not to raise revenue but to keep the tunnel free for trucks. And if there are times when usage is low, there is no reason while tolls shouldn't be relaxed or even removed if there is no demand."
He went on to suggest that the number of vehicles using the tunnel is likely to grow strongly over the coming years.
"When the M50 opened, the traffic flows appeared to be quite low. But over a period of a couple of years it picked up. I suspect something similar will happen with the tunnel."
Another contributory factor to the low usage is the fact that the proposed eastern bypass is not being completed.
"Originally the Port Tunnel was the northern leg of the eastern bypass which would have seen the tunnel continue under the Liffey and Sandymount and join the N11 south of Mount Merrion. Had that been built we would have seen a very different pattern," he said.
Fine Gael transport spokeswoman Olivia Mitchell said the reduction in tolls would do little to utilise the huge capacity of the tunnel.
"While I would absolutely support the lowering of tolls, it seems to me to be a nonsense that we spent almost €750 million on this tunnel and only a handful of vehicles each day are using it."
She said while the removal of HGVs from the city was welcome, the tunnel has a similar capacity to the M50 but carried just a fraction of the traffic.
"It was designed and built to serve an expanding Dublin Port in conjunction with an eastern bypass. That was its original purpose. Now the port isn't expanding and may move, and the bypass has been dropped," she said.
"To me it is a white elephant, and if usage remains at this level then there are huge questions to be asked about the value for money that the taxpayer got."
