Britcon completes toll project for iconic bridge

Building and civil engineering contractor, Britcon has completed works to install a new £5.5 million new state-of-the-art toll collection facility on the iconic Humber Bridge, allowing drivers to cross via electronic payment and reducing disruption to millions of users each year.

Britcon undertook full infrastructure works for the project on behalf of Sociedad Ibérica de Construcciones Eléctricas (SICE), a world leading specialist consulting with the Humber Bridge Board on intelligent transport and environmental control systems. SICE is now progressing installation of the electronics and expects to complete the entire project by Summer 2015.

Paul Clarkson, Managing Director at Britcon said, “The existing toll collection system was installed in 1981 and as such the technology was becoming obsolete and high maintenance.

"The new and innovative collection system includes one of the first open-road tolling arrangements to be installed in the UK, where vehicles do not need to stop while driving through the toll plaza. They are billed through electronic methods via tags tied to a Humber Bridge toll account.”

‘HumberTag’ allows the customer to register for a toll payment account where a small tag is placed in the windscreen of the vehicle and read each time the customer passes through the toll booths or the open road system. Toll values are debited from a pre-registered account. This means that drivers can pass straight through without interruption. The new facility will also reduce the number of booths from the existing six, to three in each direction with automatic barriers.

Britcon was contracted to manage the decommissioning of the existing toll provision, supply and install a temporary toll system during the construction process and design and construct the new facility in its entirety. This included major alterations to the existing highway and open road toll lanes, construction of the toll plaza housing structures and collection system equipment.

Paul Clarkson continues, “The project was a major undertaking that required extensive expertise in civil engineering and structural requirements to house world leading technology. Our experience on such projects has allowed us to draw upon the specialist resources within the Britcon group and despite the scale of the project we have maintained a delivery programme that is on time and on budget with minimal disruption.”