M6 Toll Road for sale.

[proactive]

There is still no alternative motorway to Birmingham, however wealthy you maybe.

How could there be!

 

[John Marwood]

How could there be!

Underground Overground Womberling Free!

 

[proactive]

Underground Overground Womberling Free!

Aha, you've given the game away. With a detailed planning proposal such as that you must be high up at SCC Highways.

 

[cj1]

its been a massive failure not only did it fail to reduce congestion on the m6 (highways agency have had to spend millions on congestion relief to keep traffic moving) its also never made a profit. had the road been free to the end user congestion would of been significantly less on the old m6 as more people would of used the m6 toll. meaning congestion relief would not of been needed on the m6.

 

[John Marwood]

its been a massive failure not only did it fail to reduce congestion on the m6 (highways agency have had to spend millions on congestion relief to keep traffic moving) its also never made a profit. had the road been free to the end user congestion would of been significantly less on the old m6 as more people would of used the m6 toll. meaning congestion relief would not of been needed on the m6.

 

[John Marwood]

Vehicles heading to Birmingham and the Black Country are a massive part of the M6 southbound traffic

Nothing will change this

Free Toll
Expensive fuel
Dancing Girls

The volume will continue even when the last Rothschild has moved to the moon

 

[Noah]

One of the big problems with traffic on the M6 is traffic from/for the M5 which is nothing to do with Birmingham & the Black Country. The M42 helped by taking off some of the M5 traffic heading to & from the east & south, the relief road that was needed was not the M6 Toll route but something heading from around J4 on the M5 via the M54 between Js 2 & 3 and on to the M6 north of Stafford which would have taken off the north & west bound M5 traffic.

M6 Toll is great if you want a quick, easy route to somewhere like Cambridgeshire. Most of the traffic has always been cars with HGVs avoiding it because of the toll. The number of HGVs is now increasing but a high proportion seem to be European with drivers who are used to toll roads. I think many people have resented having to pay tolls when they already have to pay for an expensive road fund licence.

 

[Gramaisc]

It did get rid of a lot of Mills & Boon books.

 

[John Marwood]

The only time to worry is when there are no lorries

 

[Laurie61]

M6 original expectations -

Designed to carry 72,000 vehicles per day, the section of the M6 between junctions 4 and 11 is now used by 160,000 a day, with average speeds of 17 miles per hour at peak times. Only the western section of the M25 near Heathrow records slower progress.

Relief road will carry 75,000 vehicles per day and free up space on the clogged-up M6

Tom Fanning, managing director of Midland Expressway, promised that the tariff levels would not be reviewed until after 10 million vehicles had used the new road. Analysts believe the 10 million figure will be reached within 12-15 months. The most frequent users are likely to be business drivers and freight vehicles. For lorries, a 45-minute saving in journey time is calculated to be worth £24 in operating costs. Leisure travellers visiting the North-West, the Lake District and Scotland are also expected to regard the charge as a worthwhile outlay to avoid a familiar weekend bottleneck.

Midland Expressway, which is mainly owned by the Australian group Macquarie, aims to generate enough toll revenue to pay off its debts, provide maintenance services and make a sizeable profit before its tenure of the road expires in 50 years' time. The route will then revert to state ownership.

Later -

Midland Expressway Ltd is losing millions of pounds on the M6 Toll, Midland Expressway Ltd (MEL), which built and operates the M6 Toll, has made an annual operating loss of around £26 million each year since the road opened. Midland Expressway Ltd's annual reported losses With traffic levels considerably below estimate, MEL and its parent company, Macquarie Infrastructure Group (MIG) has had to dramatically write down the value of the toll road. Robert Bain, an independent consultant and traffic modeller, notes in an article about the under-performance of toll road operators, that the MIG adjusted the value of the M6 Toll from A$2.2 billion in 2008 to A$412m in 2009 (from £1.25 billion to £234m)
To recoup falling profits, MEL has introduced annual above-inflation toll rises, driving more toll users back to the M6. Emphasising the competition between the toll and the M6, Steve Allen, the chief executive of Macquarie Infrastructure Group, told an Australian newspaper that "What we need is to slow down the M6" to make the toll road more attractive.
MEL’s 2009 annual report expresses concern at the introduction of hard-shoulder running (which would reduce congestion on the M6 and make the toll less attractive), and suggests that the company has been lobbying the Highways Agency against it.

Today -

THE boss of the controversial M6 Toll road has announced his retirement – claiming traffic numbers are ‘soaring’.

But the latest statistics show that the number of vehicles using the pay-as-you-go highway rose by just EIGHT compared to the previous year. Mr Fanning said: “I am very proud of what has been achieved under my leadership of the business. I leave it on a firm financial footing following the successful restructuring, with the support of our banks and with traffic numbers soaring. The business is in good shape with a great team of people in place.

The latest figures on Midland Expressway Ltd’s website show that in the three months from October to December 2014 an average of 41,897 used the M6 Toll. When the road was launched the operators had hoped to attract around 75,000 a day.
The statistics, which are the last available showed that in 2013 an average of 41,889 used the road every day – meaning that 12 months later just eight extra drivers were on the M6 Toll.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1429355/2-to-use-first-toll-motorway.html

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/outgoing-m6-toll-boss-praises-8751707

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...l-Report-Aug-10.pdf+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

 

[Gramaisc]

Of course, when the M5 was built, it was believed the two lanes would be enough, and most of a decade was spent widening it - then finding that most people still only drive in two of the lanes.


And, feeding two three-lane motorways into one three-lane motorway never seemed a brilliant idea.

 

[proactive]

then finding that most people still only drive in two of the lanes.

I drove from j13 to j11 on th M6 yesterday and later, back again. I never left the new inside lane, as it was totally empty. Lost count of the number of vehicles I undertook, tootling along in lanes 2 and 3 at less than 70.

Me and the cars in lane 4 were doing about 70.

Lane discipline in this country is shit. Always has been and always will be.

 

[Gramaisc]

I drove from j13 to j11 on th M6 yesterday and later, back again. I never left the new inside lane, as it was totally empty. Lost count of the number of vehicles I undertook, tootling along in lanes 2 and 3 at less than 70.

Me and the cars in lane 4 were doing about 70.

Lane discipline in this country is shit. Always has been and always will be.

Fines are possible.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/first-driver-britain-convicted-middle-5931458

The 42-year-old granddad of three said "I don't drive like an idiot".

 

[Laurie61]

Lost count of the number of vehicles I undertook, tootling along in lanes 2 and 3 at less than 70.
Me and the cars in lane 4 were doing about 70.
Lane discipline in this country is shit. Always has been and always will be.

I don't remember it being like this years ago ? although the roads were not as busy. Maybe motorway driver training for novices would help . I would think that poor lane discipline is equivalent to losing one lane.

 

[Gramaisc]

I don't remember it being like this years ago ? although the roads were not as busy. Maybe motorway driver training for novices would help . I would think that poor lane discipline is equivalent to losing one lane.

It started in the mid/late '80s, and has been growing, unchecked, since then.

I am on record as stating that the two-lane M5 would still be adequate, if it was only used by Germans.

 

[John Marwood]

I don't remember it being like this years ago ? although the roads were not as busy. Maybe motorway driver training for novices would help . I would think that poor lane discipline is equivalent to losing one lane.

I do

In 1984 it could take 2 hours to go from junction 14 to junction 9 in the morning

At night however traffic was considerably lighter. We had a 8am to 6pm economy with noted exceptions .

Today we have a 24 hour economy with all the traffic that comes with it

 

[Gramaisc]

Ah, I took it to mean "when did people start avoiding driving in the left-hand lane?"

A good bit of the congestion in the early '80s round there could have been traffic backing up off the M5, due to the widening works..?

I used to avoid the lemming runs, but I still rarely got past Junction 9 without stopping.

And, of course, the M54 was a semi-fictional motorway then.

 

[Noah]

Ah, I took it to mean "when did people start avoiding driving in the left-hand lane?"

When the first section of the M1 opened a journalist writing in one of the motoring magazines about his first journey on it said "I chose to drive in the middle lane." So the correct answer is probably that they never drove in the inside lane.

 

[Gramaisc]

When the first section of the M1 opened a journalist writing in one of the motoring magazines about his first journey on it said "I chose to drive in the middle lane." So the correct answer is probably that they never drove in the inside lane.

I don't remember it being a real issue in the 70s/early 80s. These days, it's not unusual for people to drive in the outside lane all the way from Stone to Stafford on the A34.

I have been a passenger in a car that did it all the way from Nottingham to Uttoxeter on the A50.

 

[shoes]

I drove from j13 to j11 on th M6 yesterday and later, back again. I never left the new inside lane, as it was totally empty. Lost count of the number of vehicles I undertook, tootling along in lanes 2 and 3 at less than 70.

Me and the cars in lane 4 were doing about 70.

Lane discipline in this country is shit. Always has been and always will be.

I undertake pretty much everyone these days, i haven't the time or will to sit behind a casual, occasional, female or elderly person in lane 3 doing 69.9999mph.