During my travels over xmas I noticed that from 1st Jan the M6 Toll have increased their prices so that a full run along the main carriageway is now £4. This is now starting to get a bit expensive I think. I was coming down from Lancs to Oxfordshire and will use £40's of petrol for the trip, if I add the toll road into that then I spend £48 on the journey. So it's added 20% onto my bill (we'll ignore depreciation for this calculation, the car will still depreciate whether or not I use the toll road)
Yesterday had to do the same journey so decided not to bother and although the M6 thro' Brum was busy and I had to queue for a bit, I decided it was worth saving the £4 to do this. If it were still £2.50 as when it first opened then I wouldn't have thought twice about using the toll road.
Any thoughts from anyone else ?
The Toll road did seem particularly empty as we all turned off and stayed on the M6......
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I don't think there are any price controls on this road so they can charge what they want. A lot of business users (like me, sometimes) will just add it to expenses anyway. If I stop at the services its over £5 for a cup of tea and a sanwich, so £4 is neither here nor there.
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A representative of the company made it clear on local TV a month or so after it opened that they were in the business of providing a premium route past Birmingham and they would use price to limit use to ensure that the road remained free flowing and uncongested.
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Yep, but we ALL will pay for it in the end.
Sales rep 'A' may be selling a piece of kit to fold a piece of card to protect a piece of machinery that is used to make the packaging for some blueberry muffins, for example, but the end consumer will pay.
So, regardless of the how the toll road has been / will be funded, Joe Bloggs will still be paying for it. Marvelous! The government may as well have used our taxes to build the road in the first place.
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Fair enough but at least my blueberry muffins will arrive fresh and in time for my cuppa
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But wouldn' t they taste even better if they were 2 pence/cent cheaper?
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Actually they may well do RB. Say it costs £60 an hour to ship them to my office, he only has to save four minutes on the toll road to break even. If he saves five mins, they'll be cheaper.
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Nothing is free, is it? Whether state or privately funded the costs are still there. Its a bit like the BBC license fee argument - ITV is not free, we all pay through it via slightly higher costs due to advertising.
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Ah, I saw all the signs saying the prices were "changing", what a surprise that they went up.
Even Motorway operators have taken lessons from The Labour Party....
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The key element here is information. If the public system properly informed us that the public road is clear, few would bother with the toll road. If the public road is jammed, then that information would allow some (who choose to) to divert onto the toll road, and ease the jam problem to everyone's advantage. I always suspected that the road authorities could not do this (maybe by contract?) as it would undermine the rate of return for those who invested in the toll raod.
BUT
Recently on a trip on the M6, as we approached there was what one might call a 'coded message' put up on the large roadside information boards. It said 'J9 24 miles ahead, time to J9, 27 minutes. i.e. it is telling you that traffic must be moving at an average sppeed of about 63 mph, i.e. ITS ALL CLEAR
On digesting this information, a debate takes place in the car. My wife said, Pay-up, I can't stand jams. I said lets take a chance. Gruddingly she agreed. Sure enough, it was busy, but we moved through at 55-65 mph, with no problems.
This is the first time I have seen this information given. Anyone else used it to effect?
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We were on the M42 on Monday and a similar sign said 'time to M6 junction 16 minutes'. Indicating no hold ups and it was accurate.
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We were on the M42 on Monday and a similar sign said 'time to M6 junction 16 minutes'. Indicating no hold ups and it was accurate.
>>
What's gone wrong with the system? Roadside messages that are helpful and accurate - I don't like the sound of it ;-)
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At the end of the day, the M6Toll is a business like any other. It needs to make a return on the investment the backers put in, its day to day costs, and a daily profit.
Like any other product or consumeable It will find a price level / market that makes money, or it will go bust. Simple really.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Like any other product or consumeable It will find a price level / market that makes money, or it will go bust. Simple really. ------------------------------
Yes, very simple, just like the Channel Tunnel in fact!
I can't quite figure out how a road can go bust...If the company that runs the Toll collapses then we all pick up the bill (either via government or via banks losing out on their loans and then recovering that loss from customers via higher charges). As usual its a case of 'profits are privatised and losses are socialised'.
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Except the tunnel is French, so they wont allow that to go bust.
> As usual its a case of 'profits are privatised and losses are socialised'
bit like Rover then, except they missed out on the profits bit.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Except the tunnel is French, so they wont allow that to go bust.
You evidently don't know the full saga of the Channel Tunnel.
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Indeed I do. It is mostly in hoc to City Group and Deutsche Bank but is currently under protection of French Courts to ensure those groups can not foreclose.
Anything else you wish to know?
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Anything else you wish to know?
LOL!
Glad to see you've done a bit of research (isn't Wikipedia useful!). Further up you said it was French.....
Its basically a UK-French company that is in debt to the tune of £6bn and has traffic levels of 30% of capacity. 'Ownership' is in the hands of banks, mostly German, and the bankruptcy protection is about to expire......Their only asset is the tunnel and track and it won't be easy to sell that on eBay; not very portable.
The tunnel can't be 'unbuilt' though - so rather nice of those banks to buy us a tunnel then, isn't it. Although I guess we'll all pay through it one way or another through the banking system. Maybe Michael O'Leary will give them £10 for it and run trains to Paris at 99p return?
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Ooh Aprilia... I can't see you getting away with that one! LOL indeed. Whatever that means, I always thought it was lots of love, but I am obviously confused. : )
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It less Anglo French more French as most of the shareholders of the worthless shares who are not banks are indeed French, Also while under the protection of the French courts it is legally French.
Did you know (and you wont find this on wikepedia) that in the event of the owners/operators being unable to fullfill the services of the tunnel due to financial problems, France has emergency powers in thier legislation (specifically naming the tunnel) to effectively nationalise it. The UK has no such powers or legislation but DO have the power for the MOD to take control (national security
legislation)
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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As a regular user of the tunnel, I have always thought that the best thing that could happen to it would be to go bust, so that it could rise debt-free from the ashes and be able to offer cheaper fares. Although I'm not sure the ferries would appreciate this.
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Its basically a UK-French company that is in debt to the tune of £6bn and has traffic levels of 30% of capacity. 'Ownership' is in the hands of banks, >>
I am old enough to remember that banks were falling over themselves to lend The Tunnel money.
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>>It said 'J9 24 miles ahead, time to J9, 27 minutes. i.e. it is telling you thattraffic must be moving at an average sppeed of about 63 mph, i.e. ITS ALL CLEAR
I've frequently seen time to Jxx displayed, but can't recall seeing the distance too. I've often thought that the time on its own isn't much use, unless you happen to know how far it is to Jxx
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