Dart Charge saves commuters 90 minutes a week

New figures released by Highways England show that journeys over the Dartford Crossing are up to 56% faster than before payment barriers were removed.

Drivers using the Dartford Crossing at peak times are saving around an hour and a half every week thanks to Dart Charge.

According to the statistics, drivers at peak times are saving up to 14 minutes southbound and seven minutes northbound.

The improvements have been achieved despite traffic volumes at the Crossing growing by around 4%, with up to 157,000 crossings being made every day in July, around 20,000 over the Crossing’s design capacity.

New time-lapse footage that shows the transformation of the Crossing has been released:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJbl-Wm9oiA

 

Dart Charge project director Nigel Gray said: “Relieving congestion and speeding up journeys at the Dartford Crossing is what Dart Charge is all about. These really encouraging figures show what a difference Dart Charge is making for drivers. Drivers commuting from Essex in to Kent are saving around 20 minutes a day, and others commuting from Kent to Essex are saving more than 15 minutes a day. We still have more work to do, working with partners to ensure that all the approaches to the tunnels in Kent are working as well as they possibly can. But I hope that these figures will reassure people that the improvements are real and that Dart Charge is working.”