Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the increase in traffic in Bristol that will result from the removal of the Severn Bridge tolls.

Following the Government announcement on 21 July 2017 to abolish tolls by the end of 2018 the Government has not undertaken any further modelling on the impact of abolishing the current tolls on traffic volumes in Bristol.

Previous modelling work was undertaken on the impact of removing tolls compared to the 2014 toll level, rather than comparing specifically with toll levels either when the decision to abolish tolls was made or at the end of the concession period. That modelling also covers a different time period to the option being delivered and so there will be differences from actual impacts. That modelling did show that there would be an increase in traffic as a result of abolishing the tolls and that this would result in approximately 16,000 extra trips per day either into or out of Bristol in 2022. This is equivalent to 8,000 two-way journeys per day.

Highways England are conducting modelling work to look at the impacts of moving from the current level of tolls to no tolls at the end of the year.