Drivers receive fines despite never using crossing

Drivers from across the UK have received fines for unpaid journeys on the Dartford Crossing despite never having been there, the BBC has learned.

The issue seems to be caused by Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras wrongly identifying vehicles with similar licence plates.

It follows a BBC East Investigation into problems with the Dart Charge system caused by switching to a new provider in July 2023.

National Highways said: “In a minority of circumstances penalty charges are issued in error. Where this happens, the charge will be cancelled as soon as a customer contacts us to let us know they are not the registered keeper of the vehicle.”

Anne Marie Kenyon, a deputy headteacher from Bury, Greater Manchester, got two fines in the post, one in April and a further one in June this year.

She was confused because she has never used the crossing.

Her licence plate begins DV and on the first occasion the vehicle using the crossing had a number plate with DY at the start; the second time the plate began with OV.

Ms Kenyon said on both occasions the photos provided on the penalty charge notice were “quite blurred and hard to read”.

The first fine was easy to deal with because it was during the Easter holidays and she was able to phone the helpline straight away.

The second was more difficult and she found it “so frustrating” to try and clear her name and felt “the way [she] was treated was poor”.

Although both fines were cancelled she said she is now worried about whether it will happen again.

The firm responsible for managing “road user charging” on the crossing is Conduent Public Sector UK Ltd, which won a £150m contract from National Highways in 2021.

The contract includes “provision and operation of roadside equipment to enable detection and identification of vehicles”.

Last year, 55 million journeys were made over the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge and the Dartford Tunnel, so these mistakes represent a tiny number of the crossings.

For Eleanor Vousden the situation was more complicated because although she lives in Berkshire, she regularly visits her parents in Dartford, Kent.

But when she received a notification to say she had used the crossing on Christmas Eve, she knew it was wrong.

The vehicle pictured was remarkably similar to hers, a silver Honda Jazz, while Eleanor drives a silver Honda CRG.

The number plates were identical except for the last letter, hers is a G, where the last letter on this plate was a C.

She said she had a good experience when she contacted Dart Charge and the crossing fee was dropped straight away.

But she wondered “how often such mistakes occur and whether people do bother to check, if they can’t remember where they were”.

But not everyone that contacted the BBC was a victim of mistaken identity.

Mike Adams from Rochester received a fine for a vehicle because the ANPR cameras could not read the number plate.

He works for Paktech Ltd, a small firm that provides safety systems for nuclear power stations and offshore oil rigs.

Mr Adams had hired a vehicle from Enterprise Cars to transport goods from Rochester in Kent, to Durham in the north east.

Although he and his office staff tried to pay for the journey online he said the Dart Charge system “wouldn’t allow it because it didn’t recognise the licence plate”.

He said that by the time he contacted Dart Charge it was too late to pay the crossing fee and he was told to wait for the penalty charge notice and submit an appeal.

Mr Adams says he has since been told by the hire firm that this frequently happens with new vehicles.

He is annoyed at facing a fine when he believes the Dart Charge system is at fault, and “profiting from enforcing fines that should not apply”.

A National Highways spokesperson said: “In some cases, manual checks are needed to make sure crossing details are accurate. This can delay those crossings being visible on the website. However, customers can still pay for these crossings at any time up to midnight the following day, whether the crossing is visible online or not.

“The easiest option for customers is to pay every time and on time. We’ve made this easy by offering different ways to pay which suit everyone’s needs. We want to make paying as stress-free as possible and limit any additional admin for our customers.

“In a minority of circumstances penalty charges are issued in error. Where this happens, the charge will be cancelled as soon as a customer contacts us to let us know they are not the registered keeper of the vehicle.”