M6 Toll
The M6 Toll, referred to on some signs as the Midland Expressway, and stylised as M6toll, connects M6 Junction 3a at the Coleshill Interchange to M6 Junction 11A at Wolverhampton with of six-lane motorway.
The M6 Toll is the only major toll road in Great Britain, and has two payment plazas, Great Wyrley Toll Plaza for northbound and Weeford Toll Plaza for southbound. The northbound toll plaza is situated between junctions T6 and T7, and the southbound between junctions T4 and T3. The weekday contactless card cost is £10.50 for a car and £18.20 for a Heavy Goods Vehicle.
The M6 Toll is part of the E-road E05 and is subject to the same regulations and policing as other motorways in the UK. It has one service station along its stretch, Norton Canes services.
History
Planning and construction
Proposals for a new publicly funded motorway were circulated in 1980. It was originally to be called the A446 Birmingham Northern Relief Road and designed to alleviate the increasing congestion on the M6 through Birmingham and the Black Country in England, as well as improving road links to neighbouring parts of Staffordshire and North Warwickshire. This was the busiest section of the M6, carrying up to 180,000 vehicles per day when it was designed to carry only 72,000.Five alternative routes were put for consultation in 1980 and a preferred route was published in 1986. In 1989 there was a public inquiry relating to a publicly funded motorway.
In 1989 it was announced that it would be built privately and a competition took place which was won by Midland Expressway Limited in 1991. The contract was for a 53-year concession to build and operate the road as an early form of public private partnership with the operator paying for the construction and recouping its costs by setting and collecting tolls, allowing for a 3-year construction period followed by 50 years of operation. At the end of this period the infrastructure would be returned to the Government. Toll rates are set at the discretion of the operator at six-monthly intervals and there is no cap on the rates charged.
There was a second public inquiry from relating to the new scheme in 1994–1995 and a decision to go ahead in 1997. A legal challenge was made by the "Alliance against BNRR" which was cleared in 1998.
Midland Expressway Limited contracted out the construction of the road to a consortium of major contractors Carillion, Alfred McAlpine, Balfour Beatty and Amec.
Build phase
Site clearance started in 2000, major construction work began over the summer of 2002 and the road opened in December 2003.
2.5 million books, including many Mills & Boon novels, were pulped and mixed into the tarmac surface to help absorb water.
In August 2003, freight operators indicated that they planned to keep their vehicles on the heavily congested M6 through Birmingham rather than send them on the new motorway due to high fees. The AA Motoring Trust said it welcomed the decision to make lorries pay a premium rate explaining that "Car drivers find lorries intimidating and they frequently hold up traffic on motorways when overtaking each other."
The road was partially opened on 9 December 2003 for traffic entering from local junctions, then fully opened on 14 December 2003.
First year of operation
On 10 January 2004, five weeks after opening, a short section of the road near Sutton Coldfield was reduced to one lane to allow for repairs to an uneven surface.On 23 July 2004 prices for heavy goods vehicles were reduced from £10 to £6 to encourage them to use the route "for a trial period".
Traffic levels
In December 2004, one year after opening, Friends of the Earth issued a press release expressing concern that, faced with lower than expected traffic numbers, Midland Expressway were trying to attract new traffic-generating developments to greenbelt and greenfield sites in the M6 Toll Corridor. and in April 2005 the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors reported that there was strong interest in the commercial property market place around the M6 Toll "zone of influence".In May 2005, the Macquarie Infrastructure Group reported that traffic figures were "disappointing". In August 2005 the Highways Agency confirmed in its own "one year" study showing that usage had settled at around 50,000 vehicle per day but that traffic volumes on the M6 had reduced slightly.
From 2008, traffic levels started to fall. Traffic in the first quarter of 2009 was 39,000 vehicles-per-day, but recovered to reach 54,000 in the second quarter of 2015.
Traffic levels are not published on a regular basis, but can be found in company financial reports published in press, generally around about September the following year.
| Year | Vehicles per day |
| 2005 | 50,000 |
| 2006 | 40,278 |
| 2007 | 41,473 |
| 2009 Q1 | 39,000 |
| 2012 | 30,541 |
| 2014 | 45,890 |
| 2015 | 54,000 |
| 2017 | 50,030 |
| 2019 | 46,000 |
| 2020 | 26,000 |
| 2022 | 46,715 |
| 2024 | 48,463 |
Historical toll rates
Daytime cash / contactless card prices for various vehicle classes since opening:| Date introduced | Class 1 | Class 2 | Class 3 | Class 4 | Class 5 |
| 9 December 2003 | £1.00 | £2.00 | £5.00 | £5.00 | £10.00 |
| 23 July 2004 | £1.00 | £2.00 | £5.00 | £5.00 | £6.00 |
| 16 August 2004 | £2.00 | £3.00 | £6.00 | £6.00 | £6.00 |
| 14 June 2005 | £2.50 | £3.50 | £7.00 | £7.00 | £7.00 |
| 1 January 2008 | £2.50 | £4.50 | £8.00 | £9.00 | £9.00 |
| 1 January 2009 | £2.70 | £4.70 | £8.40 | £9.40 | £9.40 |
| 1 March 2010 | £2.70 | £5.00 | £9.00 | £10.00 | £10.00 |
| 1 March 2011 | £3.00 | £5.30 | £9.60 | £10.60 | £10.60 |
| 1 March 2012 | £3.00 | £5.50 | £10.00 | £11.00 | £11.00 |
| 7 August 2017 | £3.00 | £5.90 | £10.00 | £11.00 | £11.00 |
| 8 July 2021 | £3.30 | £7.00 | £10.70 | £12.30 | £12.60 |
| 22 August 2022 | £3.70 | £7.60 | £11.60 | £13.30 | £13.80 |
| 30 August 2023 | £4.20 | £8.60 | £12.60 | £14.90 | £15.50 |
| 13 October 2023 | £4.70 | £8.90 | £12.90 | £15.30 | £15.90 |
| 13 May 2024 | £4.70 | £9.70 | £14.00 | £16.60 | £17.20 |
| 24 August 2025 | £5.10 | £10.50 | £15.00 | £17.60 | £18.20 |
There is a 5% discount for using a tag. Leasing of one tag currently costs £1.00/month. In addition, a monthly administrative fee of £2.00 is charged if the user wishes to receive a postal statement.
Exit/entry at some of the intermediate junctions away from the main toll booths entails a reduced toll, typically £1 less than the full fee.
M6 Expressway
There was a proposal to build a new toll motorway, called the M6 Expressway running from the end of the M6 Toll to Knutsford, where much of the traffic leaves the M6 for Manchester. It was announced on 20 July 2006 that this proposal had been abandoned due to excessive costs and anticipated construction problems.Tolls
Prices
From 13 May 2024, M6 Toll is divided into three zones. Tolls depend on the number of zones entered, determined by automatic number-plate recognition.Collection
Tolls can be paid by credit/debit card payments or in advance via an M6 Toll tag. Cash payments are not accepted.Vehicles are classified electronically at the toll booths according to their number of wheels, number of axles and height at first axle. Thus vehicles with trailers are charged extra and some large models of 4x4 are classified as vans.
Failure to pay the toll for using the motorway is a civil offence; anyone attempting to do so will be issued with an unpaid toll notice and required to send payment. If it is not paid within two days a £10 administration charge is added, plus further costs will be added if the toll is still unpaid after 14 days.
An M6 Toll tag is an electronic toll collection device attached to a vehicle's windscreen, which records the vehicle's passage through toll plazas on the M6 Toll.
Each tag can only be used with the registered number plate and has a unique account. All accounts on the M6 Toll are pre-paid, and must contain a positive balance, sufficient to cover the cost of the vehicle's toll, in order for the vehicle to be allowed through the toll gate. If the balance is sufficient, the tag will beep once and the barrier at the toll gate will automatically raise. If the balance is low, the tag will beep twice. If the balance of the account cannot cover the cost of the toll, the barrier will remain closed and an alternative method of payment must be used.
Balances can be topped up automatically once a month using Direct Debit or credit card, or by cheque.
The tags contain a microchip which uses radio-frequency identification technology. Physically, the tag resembles a DART-Tag, previously used to pay the tolls on the Dartford Crossing. The two systems do not interoperate.
ANPR Systems
A new tolling system involving Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology is currently being trialed on the M6 Toll as part of the Road Ahead strategy.
The ANPR cameras will identify licence plate data, removing the need for card payments at the toll plazas and replacing them with a remote payment system linked to online accounts. It will enable seamless end to end journeys and mean customers can manage all transactions via the M6 Toll website, whether for a single vehicle or larger fleets spread across a number of depots.
The ANPR system was Initially launched on 8 April 2021 as a pilot project for business customers, with Maritime, one of the UK's largest logistics operators, becoming the first vehicles to pay for their journeys on the M6toll via the new tolling system. Once the trials have been completed with Maritime and other commercial vehicle operators, the ANPR system will be rolled out to other road users.