Shrewsbury's historic Kingsland Bridge set for price increase as it goes cashless
Shrewsbury’s popular historic route into town is fast moving into the 21st century with the major announcement today of its second technological innovation – within a year.
The Kingsland Bridge Company, which owns and runs Shrewsbury’s Kingsland Bridge toll road between Murivance and Kingsland, has revealed the latest modernisation phase of its parking machine and barrier toll operating systems.
The latest upgrade of barrier tolls is the most significant development yet with the foresight and ambition of bringing the toll road into a new era for the benefit of residents and visitors to the town for many years to come.
The first part of the ambitious multi-thousand pound project was the installation last June of new parking machines providing a card only payment system.
“After considerable development work the new second phase technology toll barriers are currently scheduled to be installed over a number of days during the week commencing 3rd February”.
The Kingsland Bridge Company advise customers of potential inconvenience during this critical period of work and ask for their understanding and patience.
Like the recently installed parking machines, the Kingsland Bridge’s four new toll barriers will only operate by contactless card payment replacing the previous cash payment barrier machines.
“The new technology is a major leap forward for the company,” said director James Hodgson.
“The money we receive from the tolls and parking enable the company to continue maintaining a vital route in and out of Shrewsbury town centre for motorists.
“Following the introduction of the new parking machines last June we have seen a significant increase in the number of vehicles parking at the bridge, which reflects the benefit to our customers wishing to pay by card only.”
With the introduction of the new card payment only barriers, the Kingsland Bridge Company also announce an increased toll fee from 20p to 30p – the last toll increase being made 13 years ago.
Mr Hodgson explained: “We have found that there are now many of our customers who no longer use cash to make payments so the change to a contactless card payment system for the new toll barriers was inevitable due to the technological world we now live in.
“At the same time, we have noticed that banks are also increasingly reluctant to handle cash transactions.”
He added: “The introduction of the card only payment system for the parking machines was well received and we hope our loyal customers will be similarly supportive of the new toll barrier installation arrangement.
“As with the introduction of any new system there will inevitably be teething problems, but fingers crossed we hope these will be minor. The new technology will enable an interchange of lanes that will provide a flexible middle lane both in and out of town should traffic conditions determine.
“As soon as we are happy the new barriers are working effectively we will hopefully be offering customers the opportunity to purchase a multi-crossing facility”
