Motorways in Ireland
- This topic has 233 replies, 44 voices, and was last updated 18 years, 12 months ago by
.
- Posts
@Andrew Duffy wrote:
Yes, the N9/N10 scheme will be motorway standard, despite its not being included in the National Road Needs Survey that predated the National Development Plan. Predicted traffic levels on the road won’t reach even the levels required for an at-grade dual carriageway duting its lifetime.
Not that I want to start an argument about this, but I have some serious doubts about these predicted traffic volumes. Particularly a survey that came out about a year ago saying that only a small number of vehicles travel from Waterford to Dublin each day. The South East is more densely populated than the West, for example, and the populations served by an M9 and an M6 are quite similar. I estimate that, excluding Kildare, the M6 serves some 280,000 people. The M9, excluding Kildare, would serve some 230,000 people. (The M9 would serve a lower population due to the proximity of the M8 and N11) The 230,000 population served by the M9, however, would be distributed relatively close to the road, whereas the 280,000 population served by the M6 is more sparsely distributed: as far away as Clifden, Westport, etc. So judging sheerly on a population basis, I’m not seeing a better case for a Galway Motorway than a Waterford one.
As for previous surveys of traffic on the N9, it is well known that the N9 is one of the worst national primary routes in the country, and traffic often take alternative routes, such as the N11, and other, smaller roads. I don’t think you can measure traffic on the N9 and make predictions based on that for numbers that would travel on an M9.
Upgrade of M50 now delayed by change in toll policy
From:ireland.com
Friday, 17th February, 2006The €1 billion project to widen the M50 motorway around Dublin has been delayed because of the Government’s change of policy on tolling, The Irish Times has learned. The contracts for the massive project were on the point of being signed at the end of last month but were withdrawn at the last minute. Stephen Collins and Liam Reid report.
In the light of the Government’s new policy on tolling, the National Roads Authority (NRA) was forced to withdraw the major portion of the project and launch a new tendering process.
Work was due to begin before the end of this year and was scheduled for completion by 2010. It will now be at least 2011 before it is finished.
The new tenders cover 25 kilometres of the M50 which is being widened from a two-lane to a three-lane motorway in each direction. The road will be built as part of a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement.
Work on a smaller five-kilometre stretch, known as phase one, has just begun and will not be affected by the new tender procedures.
The much longer phase two could now be delayed for up to 18 months, according to informed sources.
A spokesman for the NRA yesterday denied that there would be a large delay caused by the new tendering procedure. He said it had been originally hoped that the second phase of construction would get under way by the end of this year and this might be delayed into early next year.
“A new tender process was required in order to reflect the changed scenario regarding the West Link toll facility,” he said. The NRA placed an advertisement in the Official Journal of the EU on Wednesday seeking tenders for the project just a day before the formal launch of the Government’s Infrastructural Bill which is designed to speed up work on major projects. According to the new tender notice: “The M50 PPP Contract is intended to comprise the design, construction, operation, maintenance and financing of the upgrade of approximately 25 km of the existing 2-lane carriage-way forming part of the M50 motorway to 3-lane standard, the provision of auxiliary lanes and the upgrade of a series of motorway interchange junctions.”
The NRA spokesman said that the abandonment of the original tender process would not leave the State liable to pay any compensation as there had been no contracts signed or any financial undertakings given by the State.
The change in the process arose because of the new tolling policy announced by the Government at the end of January when a decision was taken to remove the controversial West Link toll barrier within the next three years. It will be replaced with a new barrier-free tolling system.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has said that the Government will decide on the new tolling arrangements, to be introduced in 2008.
The decision by the Government followed the collapse of talks between the NRA and the bridge’s operator, National Toll Roads (NTR).
Under the plans, the State will buy out the right of NTR to operate a toll plaza on the road, in a compensation package that will be worth at least €500 million and up to €900 million to the company between 2008 and 2020.
From 2008, NTR will have no role in the operation or setting of tolls on the route and will instead receive either a lump sum or an annual payment, based on the amount of traffic using the bridge in 2007.
The West Link toll barrier will be removed by 2008, on completion of the first five-kilometre phase of the M50 upgrade between the Red Cow and M4 junctions on the route. The upgrade is aimed as easing congestion along the route, which will see freeflow junctions and an extra lane in each direction on the road.
The money from the new tolls will be used towards the upgrading of the M50 and the payment of compensation to NTR. An electronic tolling expert has been commissioned to advise on the type of system to be introduced
€500-900m would represent the biggest stroke in Irish History
Anyone hear anything about the possible upgrade of the Cork Watergrasshill road from Dual Carriage way to Motorway between Glanmire and Watergrasshill ?
NTR’s half yearly toll revenues up 7%
April 03, 2006 12:06
NTR, which operates the West Link toll bridge on the M50 motorway around Dublin as well as other road toll plazas, has reported a 7% increase in toll revenue to just under €50m for the 12 months to the end of December 2005.The number of cars paying to pass through the company’s toll operations – which also include the East Link in Dublin and the Drogheda by-pass on the M1, increased by 4% to just under 48 million vehicles. An average of 130,700 vehicles use the company’s toll bridges every day.
The company said today that use of its Eazy Pass system is up 28% on last year and 40% of peak traffic now uses EazyPass.The company also announced today that it is to become a leading international developer and operator in the renewable energy and waste recycling markets, where it currently generates 80% of its revenues.
NTR also announced today that it is seeking to list its Irish Broadband division on the Irish Stock Exchange.
In relation to open roads tolling, the company said that talks with the National Roads Authority were ongoing with a veiw to meeting the NRA’s deadline of July 2008.
Frank there are two errors in our previous calculations;
One the article you posted is a year old therefore the unexpired term is 14 years.
Secondly the usage figure relates the bridges so for a calculation a split would be required between both East and Westlink bridges.
Allowing a 50:50% split for the M50 out of all their toll projects a maximum value of €350m can be allowed itself an extremely generous figure given that increases are limited to inflation which is substantially below investment returns.
@Micko wrote:
Anyone hear anything about the possible upgrade of the Cork Watergrasshill road from Dual Carriage way to Motorway between Glanmire and Watergrasshill ?
Haven’t heard anything about that, but did hear that the Ballincollig bypass was to be changed from 100km/h to 120 km/h. NIce to see the Council showing some common sense on speed limits.
@Thomond Park wrote:
Frank there are two errors in our previous calculations]I don’t know on which date the concession expires in 2020. in any case it’s not going to change the figures significantly.
Secondly the usage figure relates the bridges so for a calculation a split would be required between both East and Westlink bridges.
Are you forgetting the M1 Drogheda bridge?
Still way off 500-900 m.
The split I used was based upon the Eastlink having a fraction of Westlink traffic and Drogheda being a little patchy.
The real question on this for me is whether the €50m is gross revenue i.e. including the government slice or is net of this. One facinating detail to come out of this is that all three bridges have a total flow of 130,700 vehicles per day.
If that methodology were to be correct then the calculation would be:
65,000 cars * .35 profit * 365 days * 14.5 years = €120,404,375
I have always found articles such as the above to be little more than ‘cut and paste’ reflections of corporate press releases which generally tend to overstate the income being generated as opposed to mask profits
(with apologies for being so boring)
In financial statements, revenue means gross sales.
Daily traffic on the westlink for first half 2005 averaged 85,000 according to NTR’s latest published numbers.
http://www.ntr.ie/downloads/ntr-roads/25-July-2005-West-Link-First-Half-2005-Traffic-Figures.pdfBridge buy-out to net NTR €600m
Tuesday, 20 February 2007 18:33
Transport Minister Martin Cullen has confirmed plans for a buy-out of the West Link toll bridge from the current owner NTR. The deal will be worth more than €600m to NTR, which originally invested IRSo the buyout seems to return an extra 300 million to NTR over their expected revenues. On the other hand, the government was in a difficult position as the benefits of their billion euro upgrade to the road would have been reduced by this single point toll. At least in the future, the tolls can be arranged to discourage commuting and short distance use of the M50 in favour of bypass and non-peak traffic.
Additionally, the government had been under heavy politcial pressure to ‘do something’ from the likes of Shane Ross. What people really want are free roads that always run freely at peak hour.
People only want free roads at peak times because they live in low density housing, work in suburban office campuses and becuase there is no proper public transport to get from a to b. To get from Greystones to City West by public transport involves 3 or 4 vehicles and takes over 2 hours. Whilst one can whiz down the M50 and complete in about 35 minutes by car completely on National roads from the time you hit the M11; such commuting undermines national infrastructure.
Shane Ross has been on his soapbox for a number of years on this and he is right the government should have done something to sort this out a long time ago. However buying the bridge at 2 or 3 times its value is a suspicious transaction given the creation history of the arrangement.
What was not considered was to develop a public transport network prior to sanctioning the M50 upgrade or simply building another road further out that links the N81 to Lucan upgrade to the N3 which would have been cheaper and also could have been tolled at a reasonable level with all the income used to offset the costs of construction without leakage.
Cullen as always has dithered and bought the most expensive option that doesn’t work long term.
@Frank Taylor wrote:
So the buyout seems to return an extra 300 million to NTR over their expected revenues. On the other hand, the government was in a difficult position as the benefits of their billion euro upgrade to the road would have been reduced by this single point toll. At least in the future, the tolls can be arranged to discourage commuting and short distance use of the M50 in favour of bypass and non-peak traffic.
Additionally, the government had been under heavy politcial pressure to ‘do something’ from the likes of Shane Ross. What people really want are free roads that always run freely at peak hour.
Did the great man of ticky-tac mention something about an election this year :confused:
:rolleyes: :p
Was it ever envisaged that the M50 would get as bad as it has? Were the volumes of traffic using it expected, and was the type of traffic predicted?
Particularly the latter question, as whatever about future economic expansion pushing up volumes, the type of traffic using the motorway, largely comprised of short-haul commuters, surely should have been expected given settlement patterns generally don’t change?From an aesthetic point of view, I find it remarkable how quickly the M50 has matured as a motorway, by virtue of the constant streams of traffic 24/7 clogging up its lanes. The Celtic Tiger sheen has long worn off and it is now more comparable to a 1970s UK motorway. Not having been on certain parts of it in a while, upon revisiting it’s quite marked in places how much it has also degenerated in terms of road surface, bridge cleanliness, railing maintenance, signage and lighting. Even the great N3 interchange, the symbol of 1990s Ireland, has become rather shabby looking, though the greenery all around is pleasantly mature. Some excellent specimen choices were made here too: the shrubs and trees have a delicate wispy quality that stands in marked contrast to the great bulks of concrete all about. One of the few scenic parts of this motorway.
The m50 reached capacity around 2000, a situation not projected to happen until 2020 – 2025 when the first leg – the ‘western parkway’ was constructed. Projections at that time indicated the third lane would be required around 2020, which would utilise the extra wide median.
You have to remember, scraping the money together for the original western parkway, which was under used for years, was in itself an achievement at that time & would have been completely impossible without EU assistance.
Those projections might sound off the wall now, but at that time, public finances were dismal, economic growth was at 0 & unemployment was rife – very little to suggest that our situation was about to change.
I don’t recall any journalist or punter at that time predicting our current situation, sure we were delighted with our first little bit of motorway :rolleyes:
True Peter. The feeling at the time of the NTR contract was “sure who the hell would want to pay to drive over a bridge way out there?”, while councillors were taking backhanders for Liffey Valley etc etc, ensuring that thousands would eventually have no choice but to pay the troll
No question of the fiscal backdrop in 1987-88 when the contract was put together but the deal was always generous to NTR in that the gross cost of construction was £27.6m inclusive of EU grant aid and related only for the N3-N4 section whilst the remainder of the motorway has not cost NTR 1c.
Whatever the history the only relevant question is do the numbers on this deal stack up; the answer for me on this is no. Even allowing for traffic flows of 125,000 per day and giving a 50% uplift in net income to 52.5c per vehicle the valuation is still only €23,953,125 per year.
Through this deal NTR will probably end up with the 50% of the income that currently goes to the government; a deal needs to be done but this is not the correct one. The existing agreement does not prevent the charging of additional tolls on other sections of the route which should be introduced at peak times to reduce commuter use in line with the policy adopted on the Dublin Port Tunnel. The income derived from same could be put towards further transport investments.
no question that the original contract was generous as is this buy out, but given the exclusivity clause in the original contract, does NTR not have the gov by the short & curley’s ? i.e little option but to pay over the odds to resolve this mess ?
Generous might cover 10% or even 20% but when you factor in a 50% uplift in net income and it it is still only 48% of the consideration offered then it is just not a deal to be done.
Lets face it Cullen, Dempsey and Breannan sat on this situation and allowed it to develop and volumes to grow and grow before caving into to NTR.
As part of this process:
1. a substantial above inflation increase was granted thus making the buyout even more expensive.An upgrade of the M50 was announced with no contribution from NTR requested
Instead of
- Threatening to freeze all future increases to inflation
- Examining the possibility of extending the Adamstown link to Blanchardstown
With a contract relating to a completed product limited to inflation you are never held by the eggs
I’ve tried fiddling with these figures in Excel. The present value of the government’s deal is simply €600 million (given the fact that the payments are adjusted for inflation). Trying to get the present value of the revenue stream that NTR are foregoing to match this (on the basis that the current average daily traffic is 85,000 vehicles) requires some rather fantastic projections or measures of current profitability.
For example, one way (to make the deal seem reasonable for the tax payer) is to assume that they currently make an average profit of 1 euro per vehicle and that they expect a steady 10% per annum increase in traffic volumes. Neither of these seem realistic to me. Alternatively, if they are currently making on 50c per vehicle, this would require a projected volume growth of 18%.
Never mind the fact that a 10% annual growth in traffic would require a doubling of capacity every 7 years (and the associated construction costs) or that I’ve made no provision for systemic risk; obviously being guaranteed €50m a year is much more valuable than operating a business which might well be threatened by projects like the new outer orbital motorway or the public transport elements of Transport21.
However I’m not that surprised. I have some highly qualified friends who work in the civil service but none seem to have any appreciation for the nuances of financial planning (even one with an MBA seems to think that concepts like present value and discounting are largely academic). Looking at the rates of return the government has offered (and continues to offer) for PPP projects demonstrates that they think in terms of cash. The nearest analogy is with individuals who think they’re getting a good deal buying things on hire-purchase or using expensive car financing deals or sticking everything onto a large credit card balance. I guess governments by their nature discount future payments heavily – after all they may not be around to have to face the music.
The fact that the entire Dail was mobilized to have an emergency sitting out-of-hours in order to rush through legislation to ensure the VHI don’t lose €34 while a deal like this – where the loss to the public purse could be 10 times as much – is presented as a fait accompli shows how perversely the government (and public sector in general) prioritise financial issues.
PVC King – do your calculations take account of the fact that HGVs pay a multiple of that of a car?
Strikes me (from a position of no knowledge of the subject) that your calculations of ‘profit per vehicle’ are very low, even if they don’t. NTR have had a very substantial cashflow from the bridge(s), and their other investments notwithstanding, have probably long paid off any loans they had. PPPs really tend to start making money for operators towards the mid end of the period, particularly as the value of the loans fall in real terms and the toll amounts don’t (adjusted etc) – which is why the more recent PPP contracts are very different, and have a ‘revenue extraction’ facility for the state.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
