News release
22 October 2024
Most journeys ever recorded for crossings over the River Mersey in Halton
Crossings over the River Mersey in Halton reached a new high this summer, with over 6.74 million journeys made by residents, commuters, and visitors from July - September 2024.
This is the highest number of crossings recorded since the Mersey Gateway Bridge opened in October 2017, breaking the previous record of 6.54 million crossings from April - June this year.
Over 2 million vehicles are consistently making the journey over the bridges each month, with the vast majority choosing to pay for their crossings using automated or digital payment methods.
The newly released quarterly figures from merseyflow include trips made across both the Mersey Gateway Bridge and the Silver Jubilee Bridge. They cover July - September 2024, and show:
- Most journeys ever recorded across the river in Halton – over 6.74 million journeys were made over the Mersey Gateway and Silver Jubilee Bridges between July - September 2024, with July being the busiest month on record.
- Over 81,000 vehicles use the bridges every weekday – with over 86% of vehicles using the Mersey Gateway Bridge to cross the river
- More customers choosing to register with merseyflow and use the auto top-up system than ever – shown by over 93% of customers using digital or automated payment methods.
- PCNs remain consistent as a % of overall journeys – over 97.4% of journeys were paid for on time
Mike Bennett, Managing Director of the Mersey Gateway Crossings Board, said: “We have a busy period coming up for renewals for Local User Discount Scheme plan holders in Halton, and although we’ve had a fantastic response from residents signing up to the auto-renew scheme we would like to encourage any eligible residents due to renew their LUDS plan to visit the merseyflow website and switch to auto-renew today.”
Neil Conway, Chief Executive of merseyflow, said: “We’ve just passed the seventh anniversary of the opening of the Mersey Gateway Bridge, and customers are continuing to take advantage of our pre-pay plans with auto top-up making it quicker and easier for them to pay for their crossings on time.”
He added: “We’re urging any qualifying Halton residents who haven’t yet done so to opt-in for auto-renewal and Direct Debit payments by visiting our website at www.merseyflow.co.uk and logging into their account.”
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.