Usage and revenues up at Dartford Crossing

Cash receipts collected by Emovis Operations Ltd for paid crossings are passed over gross to the Department for Transport and amounted to £161.6m (2014-15: £99.8m) for the year to the end of March 2016. It says the £61.8m increase on the previous year is due to the increased use of enforcement management measures introduced through the Dart Charge scheme (£53.1m) and an increase in the number of crossings over the period.

However in the first six months of 2015-16, auditors say there were significant issues with the quality of data available to support the validity of contraventions recorded on the system. A number of contraventions present on the system were identified as invalid or doubtful, as a result of issues with the accuracy of data on both crossings and the payment information used to generate a match. This resulted in many contraventions becoming significantly aged, as a result of which no enforcement action was taken on them.