Increased tolls on the M50 motorway did nothing to reduce congestion with average travel times actually having increased since the new toll regime began, according to new dataTolls for the M50 increased at the start of January, alongside those on the Dublin Port Tunnel and some other motorways. The company analysed data from thousands of anonymised commercial journeys and found that average journey times on the M50 were at least 3.5 minutes slower year-on-year. Even with the same or lower overall traffic volumes, high-congestion journey times were more than three minutes longer. At peak hours, Tuesday evenings saw the worst increase overall, getting 23.8 minutes longer to reach an average journey time of 69.7 minutes. The company’s data suggests that the increased tolls are not causing a reduction in demand, but instead demand is “being compressed”.

Source: The Irish Times February 24, 2026 17:30 UTC