Highways Agency - Safe roads, Reliable journeys, Informed travellers

M6 Toll Road (formerly Birmingham Northern Relief Road (BNRR))

Summary

A report covering the first three months' experience of traffic on the new M6 toll road and the impact on surrounding routes has revealed major benefits to motorists including jam free journeys with reliable arrival times, stress free driving and benefits to road users on other routes in the Midlands.

The report has been produced by the Highways Agency which manages, maintains and operates motorways in England on behalf of the Department for Transport. For the full report click here (2.3 MB PDF).

The M6 Toll cost £485m to build and was opened in December 2003. It is privately financed 3 lane motorway 27 miles long, providing a new strategic route to the north east of Birmingham and giving relief to the M6 and to drivers on other strategic roads in the area.

Background

The Agency and its partners along with concessionaires Midlands Expressway Ltd, have set up a programme of collecting information on traffic flows, since the road opened in December 2003.

M6 Toll- Increasing use by road users

• Average 24-hour weekday 2-way traffic flow (Monday to Friday between Shenstone and Chasetown in March was about 37,500 vehicles per day approximately 27% higher than in January.
• Traffic on M6 Toll continues to rise. Traffic volumes in April have risen 12% compared to March.
• Weekend flows are high at about 32,000 vehicles daily.
• Saturdays flows rose by more than 50% between January and March 2004.
• M6 Toll traffic flows on recent Bank Holidays reached around 40-50,000 vehicles daily.
• Traffic flows comprise mainly cars and light vehicles.

Benefits to Road Users

• Road users benefit from journey times along M6 Toll, which remain constant throughout the day.
• On average, weekday through traffic is estimated to save 12 minutes northbound and 7 minutes
• southbound (compared to using the existing M6 before M6 Toll)
• At certain points of the day the time savings are over 30 minutes.

Existing M6

Between Junctions 4 and 11, there have been traffic reductions of about 10%: -

• These vary between 12,000 and 18,000 fewer vehicles daily, almost entirely all light vehicles.
• Reductions in peak hour traffic are considerably smaller, suggesting vehicles have re-routed on to the M6 from other corridors, as predicted by HA, to take advantage of reduced traffic volumes.
• Traffic flows on Saturdays and Sundays between 15% and 20% less than week days.
• M6 Toll has improved M6 journey times. M6 Toll provides journey time savings for many hours of the day.
• On the M6 approaches to M6 Toll, (i.e. north and south of it) 2-way traffic flows have increased by around 7,000 vehicles daily, or just over 5%.

Conclusion

After three months the M6 Toll is carrying traffic approaching 40,000 vehicles daily during the week and over 30,000 at the weekend. It has removed significant amounts of traffic passing through the West Midlands conurbation from the parallel sections of the existing M6 and other A-roads. Significant improvements have been made to traffic on other roads including the A50 at Stokeon-Trent.

Traffic flows on M6 Toll have grown by 27% in the first 3 months of operation. Traffic on M6 Toll is likely to continue increasing.

Further Information

Highways Agency Information Line: 08457 50 40 30 (calls are charged at local rate)

Website: http://www.dft.gov.uk/

The M6 Toll is operated by Midlands Expressway Ltd. For more information visit http://www.m6toll.co.uk/

Further copies of this leaflet are available by calling 0870 1226 236, quote ref HA 100/04.

For information on the Department for Transport consultation on a new M6Expressway please click here.