Dartford toll free-flow system...(and increased payments)
Discussion
robinessex said:
Is that due to the work neede to create the new ANPR zone(s)
On the radio they said something about a new system to monitor overheight or overweight lorries which had caused the problems since the weekend, I was surprised that large loads would go through the tunnel/bridge anyway.greygoose said:
robinessex said:
Is that due to the work neede to create the new ANPR zone(s)
On the radio they said something about a new system to monitor overheight or overweight lorries which had caused the problems since the weekend, I was surprised that large loads would go through the tunnel/bridge anyway.There's been a queue to Swanley from morning to evening for the last 2 days, I went through this morning and the left tunnel wasn't moving at all.
MarshPhantom said:
greygoose said:
robinessex said:
Is that due to the work neede to create the new ANPR zone(s)
On the radio they said something about a new system to monitor overheight or overweight lorries which had caused the problems since the weekend, I was surprised that large loads would go through the tunnel/bridge anyway.There's been a queue to Swanley from morning to evening for the last 2 days, I went through this morning and the left tunnel wasn't moving at all.
Wondering if the natural inclination of the trucks to stay inner lanes is causing a hold up.
Does look like they have almost finished a crossover section between the two approaches though.
On Monday and Tuesday morning when I travelled across the bridge they had stopped traffic in the left hand lanes (anti-clockwise) to let abnormal loads through. I would think that doing this a few times during the morning rush hour would cause major delays that are unlikely to be recovered through the day.
But looking on the various traffic sites today, it is saying no queues so fingers crossed it stays like that......
But looking on the various traffic sites today, it is saying no queues so fingers crossed it stays like that......
Edited by Humpy D on Wednesday 17th June 12:50
Only traffic sites I use now are http://www.frixo.com and Waz/google maps. The number of times I've been sat engine off on the M25 lately while the likes of the BBC travel sites are telling me no incidents is unreal.
Well, it's now 2 weeks since the new layout anti-clockwise and it's clear that it's worse than before. Queues in the morning are nearly always back to junction 2 and in the evening junction 3. Ok, it's not been a particularly good 2 weeks with regard to accidents, etc but even so.
Seems to me that the escorting of overheight/abnormal loads through the tunnel (causing the left hand tunnel to be closed for a period of time) is more prevalent than before.
What are others views and has anyone voiced their frustrations to the Highways Agency?
Seems to me that the escorting of overheight/abnormal loads through the tunnel (causing the left hand tunnel to be closed for a period of time) is more prevalent than before.
What are others views and has anyone voiced their frustrations to the Highways Agency?
Gixer said:
Yep! I agree it's worse. I can't understand why they keep stopping the traffic. The number of times I've come over the bridge and seen the traffic being held for what looks like no reason is ridiculous. School holidays soon, so it'll only get worse.
It's probably for anything overheight or overlength.jagracer said:
Gixer said:
Yep! I agree it's worse. I can't understand why they keep stopping the traffic. The number of times I've come over the bridge and seen the traffic being held for what looks like no reason is ridiculous. School holidays soon, so it'll only get worse.
It's probably for anything overheight or overlength.Gixer said:
Yeah, but its now causing more hold ups, more waiting and longer queues than before. Why? The tunnel is the same size, so unless the number of tankers and high vehicles has suddenly increased, why are they now taking longer to process them
That's easy to answer, they've designed and now implemented a super efficient method of screening the overhieght/length vehicles........................probably designed by some chimps from London zoo, or would that be an insult to the chimps 
jagracer said:
hat's easy to answer, they've designed and now implemented a super efficient method of screening the overhieght/length vehicles........................probably designed by some chimps from London zoo, or would that be an insult to the chimps
Bit harsh, leave the chimps out of it. 
I send about 5-10 vans a day over the crossing, and agree it's got worse the last few weeks, southbound is great, it's the northbound that causes delays, but to be honest, what's the answer, I think even with no booths and the traffic flowing, it would still clogg up as you have lakeside,blue water and the A13/channel motorways all meeting within a few miles of the crossing, an already mega busy M25.
djstevec said:
f
k and bks....forgot to pay for my crossing on Sat afternoon. I guess paying this morning is too late to avoid being stiffed for £35?
Is this the fine? bk and bks....forgot to pay for my crossing on Sat afternoon. I guess paying this morning is too late to avoid being stiffed for £35?ks indeed. I'm not a regular user and went over this Sunday (day before yesterday) thinking where's the toll booth. I set up an account and put £10 on it this morning. Will I be hit with a fine (x2)? My crossing history had nothing in it!Gixer said:
Yeah, but its now causing more hold ups, more waiting and longer queues than before. Why? The tunnel is the same size, so unless the number of tankers and high vehicles has suddenly increased, why are they now taking longer to process them
Because now that the toll booths have been removed and traffic is free flowing, lorries are approaching both tunnels, which have different height restrictions. When the toll booths were active, if an over-height vehicle attempted to use the tunnel, then they could stop all traffic on the toll plaza, let the lorry through and guide it off the carriageway, either to wait for escort, or to divert it if it's too large to enter the tunnel.Now that there are no tollbooths, they need an automated control system to ensure that lorries use the correct lanes, and to stop and extract those that don't - they are sent back to junction 2 to re-attempt their approach (and I believe they are fined).
There's a good explanation video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOhrxtAzqFQ
jagracer said:
hat's easy to answer, they've designed and now implemented a super efficient method of screening the overhieght/length vehicles........................probably designed by some chimps from London zoo, or would that be an insult to the chimps
The system is obviously working because it's detecting and stopping over height vehicles for extraction. There are numerous warning signs on the tunnel approach, but it's not really the fault of the tunnel control system if lorry drivers choose to ignore the road layout changes and cause traffic to stop whilst they are diverted.
My friend works at the tunnel and helped design and implement the changes and as he said, the delays aren't entirely unexpected - they've ripped out a system which has been in place for 40 odd years, so it's inevitable that there are teething troubles and delays as people get used to the changes and new road layouts.
He is by no means a "chimp" and unless you think you could design a better system that allows for free flow traffic, but also stops over height vehicles (and gets them off the carriageway and diverted as quickly as possible), then I think your comments are a bit harsh to be honest.
No doubt if they hadn't bothered, just removed the booths and stuck a couple of signs up, you'd be the first to moan about the ensuing chaos when over height vehicles struck the tunnel and forced it to close.
Esseesse said:
djstevec said:
fk and bks....forgot to pay for my crossing on Sat afternoon. I guess paying this morning is too late to avoid being stiffed for £35?
Is this the fine? bk and bks....forgot to pay for my crossing on Sat afternoon. I guess paying this morning is too late to avoid being stiffed for £35?ks indeed. I'm not a regular user and went over this Sunday (day before yesterday) thinking where's the toll booth. I set up an account and put £10 on it this morning. Will I be hit with a fine (x2)? My crossing history had nothing in it!Best bet is to phone them up with the date and the reg No. and pay for that journey. Although I think you should pay by midnight the following day they are still waiving this and taking back payments for months previously.
M
Last time I looked ' improvement' meant just that. The fact the queues are worse doesn't look like an improvement to me regardless of what their intentions were. It's yet another fk up in a country that's lost the plot when it comes to infrastructure.
You friend may or may not be a chimp but the chimp that thought this st up clearly was a chimp...... There's a 4 lane bridge sitting next to the 2 tunnels, that could take any height vehicle and tankers all day long if it was made 2 way. ........
Conscript said:
The system is obviously working because it's detecting and stopping over height vehicles for extraction.
There are numerous warning signs on the tunnel approach, but it's not really the fault of the tunnel control system if lorry drivers choose to ignore the road layout changes and cause traffic to stop whilst they are diverted.
My friend works at the tunnel and helped design and implement the changes and as he said, the delays aren't entirely unexpected - they've ripped out a system which has been in place for 40 odd years, so it's inevitable that there are teething troubles and delays as people get used to the changes and new road layouts.
He is by no means a "chimp" and unless you think you could design a better system that allows for free flow traffic, but also stops over height vehicles (and gets them off the carriageway and diverted as quickly as possible), then I think your comments are a bit harsh to be honest.
No doubt if they hadn't bothered, just removed the booths and stuck a couple of signs up, you'd be the first to moan about the ensuing chaos when over height vehicles struck the tunnel and forced it to close.
Well it clearly doesn't work as the queues are worse for all to see and it costs more. As for over height vehicles, I do hope it's better than the system at the Blackwall tunnel where it randomly stops commuter coaches every other morning for being over height, despite the fact they are not and go through the tunnel several times a day. There are numerous warning signs on the tunnel approach, but it's not really the fault of the tunnel control system if lorry drivers choose to ignore the road layout changes and cause traffic to stop whilst they are diverted.
My friend works at the tunnel and helped design and implement the changes and as he said, the delays aren't entirely unexpected - they've ripped out a system which has been in place for 40 odd years, so it's inevitable that there are teething troubles and delays as people get used to the changes and new road layouts.
He is by no means a "chimp" and unless you think you could design a better system that allows for free flow traffic, but also stops over height vehicles (and gets them off the carriageway and diverted as quickly as possible), then I think your comments are a bit harsh to be honest.
No doubt if they hadn't bothered, just removed the booths and stuck a couple of signs up, you'd be the first to moan about the ensuing chaos when over height vehicles struck the tunnel and forced it to close.
Last time I looked ' improvement' meant just that. The fact the queues are worse doesn't look like an improvement to me regardless of what their intentions were. It's yet another f
k up in a country that's lost the plot when it comes to infrastructure. You friend may or may not be a chimp but the chimp that thought this s
t up clearly was a chimp...... There's a 4 lane bridge sitting next to the 2 tunnels, that could take any height vehicle and tankers all day long if it was made 2 way. ........Edited by Gixer on Tuesday 7th July 17:40
Gixer said:
Well it clearly doesn't work as the queues are worse for all to see and it costs more......Last time I looked ' improvement' meant just that. The fact the queues are worse doesn't look like an improvement to me regardless of what their intentions were. It's yet another fk up in a country that's lost the plot when it comes to infrastructure.
In my experience, it's still much better than it was before any of the free flow tolling was introduced. Yes, there are still queues which as I mentioned I suspect are down to teething troubles with the height sensors, but it's not even been fully operational for a month, so there may still be further improvement. And the toll actually costs less if you sign up for a Dart Charge account (but I do take your point - increasing the cash costs is taking the p1ss).k up in a country that's lost the plot when it comes to infrastructure. Gixer said:
As for over height vehicles, I do hope it's better than the system at the Blackwall tunnel where it randomly stops commuter coaches every other morning for being over height, despite the fact they are not and go through the tunnel several times a day.
Not sure what the system is like for the Blackwall Tunnel, but I imagine the new one at Dartford is more modern and capable.Gixer said:
You friend may or may not be a chimp but the chimp that thought this st up clearly was a chimp...... There's a 4 lane bridge sitting next to the 2 tunnels, that could take any height vehicle and tankers all day long if it was made 2 way. .......
What about the necessary road realignments to get northbound traffic crossing over southbound carriageways to the bridge and then integrating that all in with J1B?t up clearly was a chimp...... There's a 4 lane bridge sitting next to the 2 tunnels, that could take any height vehicle and tankers all day long if it was made 2 way. .......What about all the subsequent work to do the same for the junction on the north bank? There's very little room as it is on either side of the river, the cost and logistics of reworking both sides of the crossing to achieve what you want are immense.
What about the installation of a central reservation on the bridge? Because I doubt very much they'd allow two way traffic on a single carriageway over that bridge without physical separation.
What about when the bridge is forced to close because of high winds, and you have to divert everything through the tunnel anyway? You'll have to factor all that into your above road realignment to ensure that traffic can be diverted as necessary, and then you'll still need a way of stopping traffic.
This is my point; it's very easy to sit at a computer and say "why not just use the bridge?", but when you actually sit down and think about everything that needs to be considered, it's a mammoth task with mammoth costs; it's not just a case of shifting some cones around and repainting the road markings.
The preferred solution would be of course to build a second bridge to increase throughput and to negate the major disadvantages of the tunnels, but this is also a huge logistic and cost undertaking in itself. Thus, getting rid of the tolls, which were the biggest bottleneck of the crossing, is the logical step; but because there are stringent rules for the tunnels, they are still required to install the height barriers and stuff to manage traffic. So what we have now is still probably the best thought out and implemented option. It might not have completely solved the problem, but until the throughput is improved with a whole new crossing (or by boring out the tunnels and making them motorway specification and able to accept all sized vehicles), I don't think anything really will.
Don't get me wrong, as someone who uses the local roads, I'd like to see major improvements too, but without the political will to spend the money and put with the absolutely huge disruption it would cause, it's not going to happen soon.
Edited by Conscript on Tuesday 7th July 18:54
Edited by Conscript on Tuesday 7th July 18:56
You must cross at odd times of the day then, if you think it's better. It's clearly not, as backed by the regular users on here and the fact it's still often back to Jct 3, It was stuffed all four times I used it yesterday. Southbound has seen an improvement but Northbound is still terrible and it will always be as long as they are stopping all traffic for tankers and high vehicles.
Cheaper? Really? That's odd, I'm paying £3.34 for each round trip on my account. On my old Dart tag account I paid £2.66 a round trip. That isn't cheaper according to my maths, neither is it an improvement.
They already have half the infrastructure there for the contra flow when tunnel works or bridge works are undertaken. Using the bridge 2 way really wouldn't be that hard and it would have permanent full-time infrastructure there for when closures were needed. Yes there would need to be a barrier on the bridge, again not impossible .
Before the 'improvements' when the bridge was closed high vehicles were diverted all the way round the M25. What would change?
The Chinese mange to build crossings from main land China into Hong Kong that flip the carriage ways from left hand drive to right hand drive, (google it) I'm sure we could build s switch over that can swap the 2 inside lanes onto the bridge and back again. Not really rocket science is it? It's pretty simple road building in fact and it's not like the crossing isn't robbing the hell out of us is it? It was paid for years ago and was supposed to be free then. Like every other road scheme is this country, it's done on the cheap with no real benefit for the long term.
As for the Blackwall, I think it is a new system. Part of the 'improvement' when they refurbed it and added average speed cameras and got rid of the tidal flow - another great way to add to congestion.
I drive a lot of miles in the UK and quite a few in Europe and one thing is clear, we are pretty bad at updating our infrastructure here in the UK compared to our neighbours and our lack of investment is really starting to bite us in the arse and it's only going to get worse.
Cheaper? Really? That's odd, I'm paying £3.34 for each round trip on my account. On my old Dart tag account I paid £2.66 a round trip. That isn't cheaper according to my maths, neither is it an improvement.
They already have half the infrastructure there for the contra flow when tunnel works or bridge works are undertaken. Using the bridge 2 way really wouldn't be that hard and it would have permanent full-time infrastructure there for when closures were needed. Yes there would need to be a barrier on the bridge, again not impossible .
Before the 'improvements' when the bridge was closed high vehicles were diverted all the way round the M25. What would change?
The Chinese mange to build crossings from main land China into Hong Kong that flip the carriage ways from left hand drive to right hand drive, (google it) I'm sure we could build s switch over that can swap the 2 inside lanes onto the bridge and back again. Not really rocket science is it? It's pretty simple road building in fact and it's not like the crossing isn't robbing the hell out of us is it? It was paid for years ago and was supposed to be free then. Like every other road scheme is this country, it's done on the cheap with no real benefit for the long term.
As for the Blackwall, I think it is a new system. Part of the 'improvement' when they refurbed it and added average speed cameras and got rid of the tidal flow - another great way to add to congestion.
I drive a lot of miles in the UK and quite a few in Europe and one thing is clear, we are pretty bad at updating our infrastructure here in the UK compared to our neighbours and our lack of investment is really starting to bite us in the arse and it's only going to get worse.
Edited by Gixer on Tuesday 7th July 20:02
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