Faulty cameras saw drivers slapped with £4m in major Dart Charge error – ‘Unforgiving!’

Drivers have been left furious after being wrongly issued with £4.1million worth of fines for using the Dartford Crossing over a 12-month period.

The penalties were handed out following National Highways’ switch to a new payment management provider for the busy crossing that connects Essex and Kent.

The error was highlighted in a recent investigation by PA news agency which found that 59,007 penalty charge notices had to be cancelled during this period.

Each fine was initially set at £70, though this would be reduced to £35 if paid within 14 days. The errors occurred after private company Conduent took over the £150million contract to manage crossing payments from July last year.

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This marked a dramatic increase from the previous 12 months when just 3,595 fines were cancelled. Problems emerged after Conduent began managing the crossing, with drivers reporting various issues with the payment system.

Some motorists were charged when vehicles with similar number plates used the crossing. Others found themselves unable to make payments or manage their accounts properly.

The crossing, which includes both a bridge and two tunnels, requires payment between 6am and 10pm daily. Fees range from £2.50 for cars to £6 for lorries, with payment required by midnight the following day. Drivers can pay through various methods, including online accounts, telephone and post.

Automatic number plate recognition cameras monitor the crossing, with penalty notices issued when no payment is detected.

But the method has left thousands of drivers out of pocket with one person charged 34 times for crossings she never made over a seven-month period.

The problem stemmed from faulty cameras misidentifying a vehicle with a similar number plate to hers, differing only by one digit.

The driver said: “I had no idea what was happening. At the beginning I got quite upset. I thought my number plate had been cloned so I contacted the police. It turned out the cameras were faulty.”

Despite numerous calls to the Dart Charge contact centre, the motorists struggled to resolve the situation. She added: “It’s taken an awful lot of my time and wasted a lot of my energy. I rang them so many times. They’re very unforgiving if you make a mistake, but they don’t care if they make a mistake. They’ve never properly apologised.”

National Highways has since apologised to the driver over the mistake, but she was not the only one to be impacted. Another driver from Ipswich faced a different issue when she received two fines in January.

The penalties were issued because her payment card had been removed from her Dart Charge account. While users were required to re-validate payment cards following Conduent’s takeover, the driver said she was unaware of this requirement.

She stated: “We had an account set up, there was no reason for the card to be removed,” she said. It’s quite frustrating. I’ve never had a fine until this occasion. In our opinion, we were trying to be law-abiding citizens paying the toll as required, and were punished off the back of that.”

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National Highways acknowledged the technical issues that occurred during the transition to the new service providers. The organisation said in a statement that it regret some customers have experienced issues “when making payments and managing their accounts following the transition to the new Dart Charge service providers”.

The agency emphasised that any incorrectly issued PCNs would be cancelled once customers make contact. More than 55 million journeys are made on the crossing each year, with approximately two million penalty notices issued for non-payment.

National Highways claims the problems have now been resolved stating that the errors reduced to less than one per cent of all PCNs issued.

Conduent declined to comment on the matter.