I remember there was a furore when the directors of merseytravel felt the need to up it for the fifth time in a decade to 1.50, but when did the sheisters sneak this one in?

April 1st i think. Went though on the 2nd chucked my 1.50 in and the barrier didn't go up, looked across and the read out said 0.10 luckily i had some spare change

The ferry ticket price went up too this week with no warning.

Still £1.30 for Fast Tag users, why do people not have one if they live on Merseyside anyway? Why pay more?

Glad it's still 1.30 for us tag folk! They should have a fast tag only lane that would be cool

I seen the tunnel police vehicles being valeted by an outside valet company today while they were parked in the Wallasy entrance. Great use of our toll money there. Must be at least £20 a vehicle. Don't know how often they get done...

it's every week by pro valets, will cost a lot more than £20 each put it that way.

Make it fair £1 to regular users and £1:60 to everyone else.

& make motorcycles pay

What's wrong with a fooking Hoover and a jet washer the lazy gits

Why they need 4x4's at all? Why do they need to be valeted every week?

They need 4x4's so they can tow broken down vehicles out (fair enough). But a valet every week is redichulous!

Also get annoyed when the tunnel police get a bit excited when they have to move cones and they put all their blue lights on, very dazzling at night.

You're only moving cones... the rear side to side red lights will be suffice.

Totally agree. If every bike paid just .50p each way then the fee could just be a £1 pr car..

That wouldn't work would it? How many bikes to cars do you see...

The number of bikes going through compared to cars wouldn't even come close to that figure. I doubt if you'd even get it down by the 10p it's just gone up.

For bikers to pay they'd have to stop, take gloves off, get the money out of pockets, put gloves back on, and it's FAR to easy for them just to avoid the barrier, half the day would be spent stopping bikers (who Mersey Tunnel Police can't chase) to see if they'd paid.

The bikes don't slow things down (okay, so push bikes do) and the revenue increase from them would be minuscule.

The Automatic booths have huge queues at the moment, have done all week, as people put the £1.50 in and then sit there waiting for the barrier to go up. .


Here's one for you, and this I think will cause me grief but I'm going to say it anyway:
People in receipt of the Higher Rate Mobility Allowance can get a Fast Tag to use in a designated vehicle to go through the tunnel for free (if you haven't got one, apply for it, it's not transferable and the person it's registered to has to be in the car every time it is used), my question is, why do disabled people need one ?

Okay so I understand that everyone should have the same right of access to all places and facilities, but why does this mean that the tunnel should be free ?
If its because of the cost of getting to Liverpool then surely everyone on Income Support should get one.
If its because we don't want people with disabilities to be stuck on the Wirral unable to get about, well that's why we have a free Bus/Ferry/MerseyRail pass.

Cost Cutting for Mersey Tunnels:

Get rid of Fast Tags totally, the costs of the administration of it destroys any margins made from the advance payments.
Move out of expensive Waterfront properties, they're not needed to effectively run the tunnels, and can be anywhere.
Increase the Toll to £2, but one way only. Eases congestion and reduces booth maintenance.
Stop inventing things to spend money on, it's not your money eg: removing the "Manned" signs, putting LED signs up so we know the booth operators name, artwork in the tunnel - right on the bend as you go in, (shall we look at it).
Don't close the whole place down every time someone steps over one of the rails on the bridges, do something so it can't be done.
Limit the areas the Police Vehicles can be used, if they want to go to Mucky D's fair enough people have to eat, but the closest one, not the one in Bromborough because they know some of the staff in there.

If all else fails, just stop paying for it, what's going to happen, you can't repossess a hole.

It's a tax....can't be avoided...in a few years it will be £2 then £2.50. No one will complain because that's life. In the last 20 years we've had strikes, riots, looting, more riots, mass demos and all sorts. Governments have just weathered the storms knowing that eventually we will shut up, turn round, go home, and budget for the next wave of new taxes. Poll tax to council tax to petrol tax to green tax to bedroom tax...Having more than two children is now becoming taxable, there will be dog taxes, and anything that's taxable...anyone who watches history programs will know where this is going. Sorry to rant....but it can destroy the soul knowing there's not a damn thing ONE person can do about it.

Makes me sick as well,soon be that we can t afford to go to work.Pity the ones who have to pay the tunnel fare to go back and fourth to work everyday.And as for taxing on pets its an expense to keep one going.

I Wish it was only £1.60 on the bus.

Really ? Not if you had to pay the fuel for the bus as well.

Interestingly, the £1.60 price sign has been on the back of the sign boards for months, awaiting the day when the so-called 'democratic' decision to increase charges would be taken. It rather suggests that everyone knew the increase would be voted for and was a foregone conclusion...

One other tunnel gripe: on the staffed booths, why isn't the gap between the booth and the payment bucket longer? That way, someone could be paying and going through the barrier while someone behind them could have their change from the personnel. Instead, there's an inevitable hold up.

AND ANOTHER GROUSE... at £1.60 that's at least one extra coin that has to wind its way into the mechanism. Multiply that by all the cars going through and you'll see how it can lead to jams.

AND ONE MORE GROUSE... if you get change at the booth, you're only given 5 x 20p. As you have to tender three of them, you won't have enough for the return trip, and will have to get more change. Grrr!

Fast tag would solve all your problems.

Totally agree. I would go further.

London has had number plate recognition since the congestion charge was introduced. I've been on highways in Florida that have had this for years also. Why not Mersey Tunnels? You could remove the need for booths and cashiers in one swoop, saving money (for either reducing the toll or paying the debt quicker) and you'd reduce congestion as cars wouldn't be forced to stop.

I sometimes think Mersey Tunnels must employ someone just to dream up ways of spending money on something / anything other than paying off the original debt.

The area around the booths seems to have become the most over-engineered construction. Signs everywhere, rumble strips, red lane markings, LED signs (so we know who the cashier is!) and plant pots - every other month there's some new 'innovation' down there. On top of this the "Manned" signs were changed to "Staffed" and have now changed again to become "Attended".

All the time the most basic things that would improve the driver experience get ignored.

Ya-boo, spoilsport !!!!
I rely on the low cost through the tunnel on my bike - or I simply would not go. Then the L'pool shops lose out because I will buy on line.

Snod

Sorry to arrive late here.

I've long suggested only having booths for payment on one side and free the other. A reasonable increase to compensate would suffice.

The savings on staff and equipment as well as cutting tailbacks and increasing safety (no tailbacks into the tunnel) make me wonder why his hasn't already been done.

I've always wondered why they pay huge police wages to people that just move traffic cones, employ trained traffic cone movers at half the price and shift the police on to some real policework on the streets. I'm not sure how many other small tunnels employ their own police force, one that does very little and cannot apparently even wash their own vehicles.

Average speed cameras located at each end of the tunnel would be more effective than overpaid cone marshals.

In this digital age it's staggering that you can't pre pay via an app and travel via registration recognition cameras. As others have said, the tunnel seems to exist in order to waste as much money as possible while battering the regular commuters with unfair price increases.

I recall my grandmother telling me that it was promised many years go when the debt was paid off, the tunnel would be free. If true then it certainly all makes sense why they appear to enjoy squandering our money.

The tunnel profits also support Arriva Buses that don't make enough profit on their own and they prop up, almost entirely the huge loss making ferry service. Thats probably the main reason that the tunnel seems like such a bottomless money pit.

Anyone noticed the 2 new police vehicles? The old people carriers have been replaced by 2 new 62 plate ones...

Mersey Tunnels Police officers hold the office of constable. Unlike most police services in the UK, the service is answerable to the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive[1] rather than the Home Office. The Executive also appoints the service's officers who are formally sworn in as Police Constables by a Justice of the Peace.[2] As of 2010 the service consisted of around 55 officers across the various ranks. The service's jurisdiction consists of the tunnels themselves, marshaling areas, entrance/exit roads and all Mersey Tunnels premises. Officers execute their duties in accordance with The Mersey Tunnels Bylaws.[3]
The tunnels service have primary responsibility for these areas, meaning they enforce the Mersey Tunnels bylaws and like all other police services the various and relevant UK statute law/legislation although perhaps by the nature of the role primarily the Road Traffic Act. Mersey Tunnels Police officers are the first line responders to any incidents or emergencies within the tunnels or premises although certain incidents and enquiries of a serious nature may be dealt with by Merseyside Police in accordance with local agreements between the two services.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mersey_Tunnels_Police

So let me get this right, the two tunnels need (or employ) FIFTY FIVE police officers.

Even if they are all on a constables pay (£27k - £36k depending on length of service) if we average out on the low estimate of £30k p/a that gives a bill of £1,650,000 p/a, which is over £4,500 PER DAY.

This is for a police force that covers only a few miles of road, and, in their own words admit, use the resources of Merseyside Police when things get tough.

And we wonder why the fees keep going up and the original bill is years over its expected final payment.

If the amount owed on the tunnels is ever paid off, and the fees scrapped or reduced to a nominal sum, how many do you think it will be decided are needed then ?

What worries me is the fact they don't answer to the home office, clearly they are a private police force operating under maritime law.

A year later, it's gone up to £1.70.

in over thirty years, Wonga would've been proud of the debt-payment interest, EVEN when its "paid off" in 2016 , labour scumbags signed off on it so it can increase forever and WE can never stop it.
we protest but as usual the taxation cash cow its turned into just keeps going up.....it'll be £2 each way by 2016 I bet you
Its like everything in the uk, the public are just the £ machine for all the money wasting, corruption etc in this country

I've stuck to my guns and only used it once in a year.

My other half who is a taxi driver was charged £3.40 to go through the tunnle just last night!
The reasoning....because he has 9 seats including his own and therefore is not classed as a car......despite his V5 stating the vehicle is a car and is taxed as a car?!!!

What kind of car has 9 seats? 7 is usually the maximum.

My thoughts too. Normally anything you see with 9 seats is usually classed as a minibus.
9,12 or 16 seats.
Last time I came through the tunnel in a taxi from a night out the taxi driver charged us the tunnel fee anyway so what difference does it make to the taxi driver.

Transit Tourneo is classed as a car on the V5

If it was a liverpool taxi you got then they do charge tunnel fee on top of the actual fare, the company my other half works for, the tunnel fee is included in the price as they use a meter

So we still get charged the tunnel fee as you say its included in the fair. It's the same difference surely.

by the time the tunnel fee is paid, and the fuel is paid, he would be taking a fare to liverpool for less than £3! would you do it?

The tunnel fees has nothing to do with the v5 docs its charged on weight or how many seats a vehicle has. Either way taxi/mini bus drivers get their money back from their customers.

No I wouldn't.
Maybe he shouldn't take fares to Liverpool then if it's only making him £3.

That's according to their website.

I was speaking to some visitors staying in New Brighton at the weekend. They were charged £40 from Lime Street to New Brighton. The taxi driver said he was "doing them a favour, its normally £60"

they were totally ripped off! In a private hire it would be around £14, if there were 6 of them, then add another £7 to that!