Following its announcement of the scheme earlier this month, the agency said that 1,157 business fleets have already been migrated to Dart Charge, and the Dart Charge team are working with the 100 largest fleet operators – between them covering more than 20,000 vehicles – to help them prepare for the changes.
It added that foreign drivers have been setting up accounts too, with 3% of overall accounts – around the same proportion of foreign vehicles that that use the crossing each day. Registrations from 52 different countries have been received so far, including Germany, France, Netherlands Belgium, Spain, Poland, Italy, Czech Republic, Belgium, Spain plus one from New Zealand.
Overall, more than 100,000 vehicles have been registered for a Dart Charge account.
Since account registrations went live on 5 November up to 2,200 people every hour have visited the Dart Charge website to sign up for a pre-pay account, which means they’ll save up to a third on each crossing. Setting up an account takes less than seven minutes on average, and around 30 % of accounts have been set up using a smartphone or tablet.
All existing DART-Tag customers should now have been contacted with details of how to migrate their account. Any who have not yet been contacted should now call the Dart Charge team.
The agency added that work to remove the payment booths and introduce a new road layout will begin on 28 November and will be completed in spring 2015 when drivers will feel the full benefits of the improvements. All road works are being planned to minimise disruption.
