News release
18 April 2023
2023 shows busiest first quarter for journeys over the river in Halton since the opening of the Mersey Gateway Bridge in 2017
New figures released by merseyflow show that residents, commuters, and visitors made over six million journeys across the River Mersey in Halton from January-March 2023, the highest number of journeys in any winter period since the Mersey Gateway Bridge opened in October 2017.
March 2023 was the busiest month for the Mersey Gateway Bridge in over three years, with almost 2 million journeys over the river being made by residents, commuters, and visitors in this month alone.
The newly released quarterly figures from merseyflow include trips made across both the Mersey Gateway Bridge and the Silver Jubilee Bridge, both of which are covered by the same merseyflow toll/charging system. They cover January-March, and show that:
- 2023 marks the busiest first quarter for journeys since the opening of the Mersey Gateway Bridge – with over 6 million journeys made across the River Mersey in Halton between January-March 2023.
- PCNs are down year on year as a percentage of journey – the number of PCNs issued dropped slightly from 2.37% of total journeys in January-March 2022 to 2.31% this year.
- March 2023 was the busiest month for the Mersey Gateway Bridge in over three years – with over 1,940,000 journeys made across the bridge, the highest since November 2019.
- App use for journey payments is still on the rise – over 122,000 transactions were made by customers using the merseyflow QuickPay App in March 2023. The app now consistently handles over 100,000 transactions each month.
- Almost 98% of journeys were paid for on time – the vast majority of people are paying for their journeys by midnight the day after they cross.
Mike Bennett, Managing Director of the Mersey Gateway Crossings Board, said: “It’s great to see that even though journey numbers are on the rise the vast majority of customers are continuing to pay for their journeys on time.
“While the Silver Jubilee Bridge is closed from 8am-5pm on weekdays over the coming months, the spring period as a whole is a reassuring benchmark that shows people can still rely on the time savings the bridges continue to provide.”
Neil Conway, Chief Executive of merseyflow, said: “Recording over 122,000 payments on the merseyflow QuickPay App in March alone shows customers are making use of the auto-pay systems we have available. As a whole, the number of customers paying for their journeys on time is on the rise and we’re confident that improvements we’re continuing to make to our customer service facilities over the coming year will help to reduce the number of PCNs issued even further.”
The quarterly merseyflow dashboard provides a range of in-depth statistics and graphs which show information on the number of crossings made, average daily traffic, number of PCNs issued, methods of payment, payments made on time, total revenue, and what percentage of this comes from PCNs.