Britain’s M6toll motorway - now up for sale - has awarded its 190 millionth customer with a year’s free travel.
James Hodson, director of motorway operations for toll road operator Midland Expressway, said it could save the driver around €2,550 over the year.
The driver’s car was fitted with an M6toll Tag, a small electronic device fitted to a vehicle’s windscreen. It allows users to pre-pay for their journeys and pass through a dedicated lane usually without the need to stop. Tags normally cost a monthly fee of €1.28 per Tag to lease and provide a 5% discount per trip.
Midland Expressway said it would reward every subsequent 10 millionth customer with a year’s free passage on the pay as you go motorway, which opened in 2004.
Each day more than 47,000 drivers use the 43km M6toll – Britain’s only toll road - that skirts the English city of Birmingham. It is unofficially part of Europe’s E-road E05 and is subject to the same regulations and policing as other motorways in the UK.
Midland Expressway won a public-private partnership competition in 1991 to privately build the road and operate it under a 53-year concession, lasting to 2054. MEL was to finance construction and recoup its costs by setting and collecting tolls. At the end of the concession period the infrastructure will revert to the government. Toll rates are set at the discretion, with no cap on the rates charged.
The 27 owners of M6toll, including Crédit Agricole, Commerzbank and Banco Espirito Santo, took over the road from infrastructure group2378 Macquarie in December 2013 after a debt restructuring.
Midland Expressway Limited (MEL), part of Macquarie Atlas Roads, continues to operate the six-lane motorway around the English city of Birmingham for the lenders. But MEL reported a loss of nearly €37 million in 2014, down from around €42 million a year before.
While operation of the road makes a profit, construction costs for the road forced the owner group to put it up for sale to recover some of the €2.45 billion of debt.
James Hodson, director of motorway operations for toll road operator Midland Expressway, said it could save the driver around €2,550 over the year.
The driver’s car was fitted with an M6toll Tag, a small electronic device fitted to a vehicle’s windscreen. It allows users to pre-pay for their journeys and pass through a dedicated lane usually without the need to stop. Tags normally cost a monthly fee of €1.28 per Tag to lease and provide a 5% discount per trip.
Midland Expressway said it would reward every subsequent 10 millionth customer with a year’s free passage on the pay as you go motorway, which opened in 2004.
Each day more than 47,000 drivers use the 43km M6toll – Britain’s only toll road - that skirts the English city of Birmingham. It is unofficially part of Europe’s E-road E05 and is subject to the same regulations and policing as other motorways in the UK.
Midland Expressway won a public-private partnership competition in 1991 to privately build the road and operate it under a 53-year concession, lasting to 2054. MEL was to finance construction and recoup its costs by setting and collecting tolls. At the end of the concession period the infrastructure will revert to the government. Toll rates are set at the discretion, with no cap on the rates charged.
The 27 owners of M6toll, including Crédit Agricole, Commerzbank and Banco Espirito Santo, took over the road from infrastructure group
Midland Expressway Limited (MEL), part of Macquarie Atlas Roads, continues to operate the six-lane motorway around the English city of Birmingham for the lenders. But MEL reported a loss of nearly €37 million in 2014, down from around €42 million a year before.
While operation of the road makes a profit, construction costs for the road forced the owner group to put it up for sale to recover some of the €2.45 billion of debt.
