{"id":450159,"date":"2026-04-23T16:41:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T16:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/450159\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T16:41:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T16:41:11","slug":"archaic-that-drivers-still-have-to-stop-and-queue-at-toll-barriers-mep-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/450159\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Archaic’ that drivers still have to stop and queue at toll barriers, MEP says"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is “archaic<\/strong>” that trucks, buses, and cars are still being forced to stop, queue<\/strong>, and pay at toll booths<\/strong>, according to MEP Cynthia N\u00ed Mhurch\u00fa.<\/p>\n

The EU Transport Committee MEP said Ireland is behind its EU counterparts, who are moving to free-flow toll systems, something we only have on the M50.<\/p>\n

N\u00ed Mhurch\u00fa said toll booths are an outdated concept that causes traffic delays, minor accidents, millions of euros in wasted diesel and millions of tonnes of carbon emissions because traffic has to queue, stop, start, and idle at toll booths.<\/p>\n

After meeting the Irish Road Haulage Association (IRHA), the MEP said toll booth stops are costing \u20ac26 million in wasted diesel each year for HGVs alone.<\/p>\n

N\u00ed Mhurch\u00fa said she is open to proposing legislation at EU level, in the EU Transport Committee, that would require EU authorities to ensure \u201cfree-flow\u201d tolling within a reasonable timeframe.<\/p>\n

\u201cMillions of cars, buses, and HGVs stop at our toll booths every year, causing minor accidents, inconvenience, traffic delays, wasted fuel costs and generating millions in carbon emissions,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We must work with our toll operators to move towards barrier free tolling, as we have on the M50. Traffic should be allowed to move freely through our toll points without stopping \u2013 either paying with a tag or through a website.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is “archaic” that trucks, buses, and cars are still being forced to stop, queue, and pay at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-450159","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-world","21":"tag-world-news","22":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116455020037215883","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}