There are now new ‘gateless’ tolls on the M50. And one thing that means is that the people who used to work there are now gone, furthermore the ‘gates’ won’t break because they are not there, meaning there are no engineers required, nor will the coins that accept the change be breaking when some wise arse throws old 50p coins into it resulting in tailbacks. Then of course there is the security, every day armoured trucks had to go out to the toll plaza (in fact I’m surprised the place was never raided) and bring in all the money. So given that the tolls will now work for a cost close to free – assuming the depreciation on the new kit is written off over time and taking the energy the cameras use as negligible in comparison to what all the old costs added up to – why does it cost more? And an even bigger question is why do I have to pay more and yet do the job for them as well?
It’s one thing to ‘self service’ …