How’s the toll treating you?

One month into the new barrier free toll system on the M50 and there is good and bad to report…

The road itself is functioning beautifully, with the old regular tailback from the toll booths gone. Having said for years that the barriers were a big part of the problem it’s nice to be proved right. But the toll collection system is another matter.

Misreads, billing errors and jammed helplines are driving people mad. Errors are being made in droves, and people all over the country who have never been near the bridge are getting demands in the post for €3 and €6 charges.

The AA is getting a lot of calls and emails from members about billing errors. In almost all cases the frustration is the same. The system made a mistake, but the motorist can’t have it corrected because they cannot get through to the eFlow helpline. Because the notices from eFlow warn that if you do not pay within 14 days there will be a penalty of €40 people are very anxious to get through to eflow to sort it out immediately. Eflow will apologise and cancel the bill (including any penalty) in the case of an error, but the sheer volumes are swamping them at the moment.

We have given below 7 of the most common complaints that we are hearing from motorists. In all cases where you are sure from your own records that the system has billed you wrongly, we would advise the following.

Don’t pay, and do not be alarmed at the threat that you will be "fined up to €5,000 or face 6 months imprisonment".
Keep records. Make sure that you know the times when you did use the bridge.
Inform eflow about the problem by email, and keep a record of that email. This can be done via their query form online at http://erp5.eflow.ie/form_contact. Keep your own copy of your query, date etc for your own records.
Inform eflow about the problem via their website. There is a form for an ‘Incorrect Vehicle Cancelling Request’ at this link:http://erp5.eflow.ie/incorrect_vehicle. Keep your own copy of your query, date etc for your own records.
Wait. Frustrating as it is, the system is currently being bombarded with calls and the helplines are jammed. If you cannot get your particular issue resolved online and you need to speak to someone, wait for a few weeks. It is hoped that the current chaos will settle down as people become used to the system and it may be far easier to reach them later on.

Common errors from the M50 billing system,
With tags:

The tag was not read correctly.

A lot of people have older tags which have been on their car for years. These should work fine, but in many cases the tag does not make a ‘beeping’ sound. This isn’t very reassuring for the motorist who cannot be sure if it has been read or not.
If you have a tag make sure that it is mounted correctly. It should be behind the rear-view mirror, high on the car windscreen. If it’s not for any reason then it’s likely to be missed. Under the old system , the tag could still be read because the car was slowing to a stop at the barriers. This won’t usually work when the car is driving past at speed.
The tag beeps but there is no sign of the trip on the bill when it turns up.

This is probably because the registration number has not been properly allocated to the account. You should keep a record or a note of when you use the M50 because you may eventually have to pay these tolls if and when the details are corrected. Make sure that your toll tag provider has your details correct. You can do this by email given that the contact numbers are extremely busy at the moment.
Despite having a tag, a bill has been received charging a €3 toll

Again, your registration number may be incorrect on the system and you should check with your tag provider. It may also be the case that a registration number similar to yours has been mis-read and the bill allocated to you instead.
The tag works fine elsewhere – eg at the M1 or M4 – but it does not work on the M50

Likely to be a problem with the tag itself, especially if it’s an older one. It may work on other bridges only because your car stops there rather than passing by at speed.

Without Tags:

A bill has been received despite the fact that you were never anywhere near the bridge.

Your number has been misread by the automatic number plate recognition system. This is happening a lot for various reasons. It could be a ‘real’ reason like a broken number plate, dirty number plates, poor weather conditions, non-standard number plates and specific issues such as mounting bolts obscuring letter or number details.
On the other hand, it may just have got it wrong. Sometimes you can see why, if for example a car registered ‘XX D 1123’ gets read as ‘XX DL 123’ then the bill will get sent to someone in Donegal. They will be quite rightly annoyed and it’s totally unreasonable to expect them to sort it out, either by queuing in the call system or by pursuing it via email.
You have used the bridge, but when you try to pay the system has no record of your plate.

It may have missed you entirely, and again the onus is hardly on you to sort it out. However as above you should note that if you used the bridge then you are liable to pay. You should keep your own records just in case you subsequently receive a demand.
You are using the bridge happily, you have never tried to pay and you have never heard from them

Happy days? Not quite... remember that you are liable to pay whenever you use the bridge. You could be due a nasty surprise in the post if and when the administration system’s problems are resolved.

The AA has always maintained that the new system is inherently expensive, error-prone and wasteful. Nevertheless we don’t want to see that inefficiency become any worse than it needs to be, and certainly motorists should not suffer unnecessary inconvenience and hassle.

It looks like mistakes are going to be a regular feature of the bridge in the future. The NRA operates the system on the State’s behalf. They explain that no system is right 100% of the time but theirs will be so good that it will eventually be right 99.8% of the time.

As the AA points out, that means 200 mistakes a day, every day, for as long as this contraption remains in place. Looks like we had better get used to it...