Transport 21 envisages that a proportion of the national roads programme will be implemented by means of public private partnerships, PPPs, which will involve private sector funding, remunerated in part by user tolls. Through PPPs, private sector innovation will be harnessed in the areas of scheme design, construction and long-term operation and maintenance and will ensure earlier delivery of vital national road infrastructure. User tolls are now in widespread use throughout the developed and developing world and are particularly favoured where rapid expansion in major road networks is required.
The National Roads Authority's current PPP programme comprises ten projects. There is limited capacity over and above the projects already identified to support viable tolling arrangements. Nevertheless, the cost of the national roads programme, combined with the demands of the other sectors which limit the capacity to allocate more Exchequer funding, require that all possibilities for generating additional funding to accelerate the implementation of the national roads programme be considered. The NRA considers that new tolled roads will deliver time-savings, journey time certainty, and an overall high level of service to users for the toll charge levied. Users will therefore derive identifiable benefits from their use of the tolled road, but at all times will continue to have available the existing untolled route. The provision of tolled routes will be an expansion of current route choice options.
I am informed by the NRA that a strict performance regime is provided for in current PPP contracts — for example, the M1 and the M4-M6 Kilcock-Kinnegad projects — to ensure compliance with requirements, including level of service provisions. Defaults in performance by the PPP company lead to the imposition of a financial penalty together with the award of points under a penalty points system which may trigger increased levels of monitoring at the PPP company's cost and ultimately contract termination. These provisions incentivise the PPP company to maintain high service levels. With regard to the West Link toll bridge, the service obligations contained in this agreement, which date back to the 1980s, are not as developed or as comprehensive as those contained in current PPP contracts.