The "unprecedented impact on traffic volumes" from Covid-19 in 2020 sent national toll revenues plummeting by €93m to €259m last year.
That is according to the Transport Infrastructure Ireland 2020 annual report, which starkly outlines the pandemic impact on the finances of the country's tolled motorway network and the Dublin Luas network.
The report states that the Covid-19 pandemic has "had an unprecedented impact on traffic volumes" as total national road toll revenues declined by 27% from €352m to €259m last year.
The report shows that toll income on the M50 in Dublin declined by 23% from €160m to €123.8m while toll income on the Dublin Port Tunnel reduced by 47% from €22.9m to €12m.
The 2020 M50 €123.8m toll income includes €6.7m from penalties. Last year, M50 tolling costs amounted to €44.9m.
The Annual Average Daily Traffic for the M50 eFlow toll in 2020 was 109,150 trips, a reduction of 28% on 2019 levels.
Last year, there were 948 incidents on the M50 that included 363 traffic collisions.
The report states that with the Covid-19 impact "TII expect toll revenues will be similarly impacted in 2021".
The report reveals that Luas revenues last year took a €55m revenue hit due to the Covid pandemic.
This arose from Luas passenger journeys last year reducing by 60% to 19.2 million with revenues reducing by 59% to €34.6m.
The Luas revenue shortfall was addressed by the provision of €30m in Public Service Obligation payments by the National Transport Authority.
Car traffic volumes across TII's national road network reduced to approximately 30% of pre-Covid levels during Q2 of 2020, with some recovery in the second half of 2020.
The Covid-19 drop in traffic did contribute to a 25% reduction in injury collisions on national roads in 2020 and a 53% reduction in road traffic collisions on the Luas network.
TII last year recorded a deficit of €30.9m compared to an operating surplus of €109.25m in 2019.
The spend by TII last year increased by 19%, from €1.23 billion to €1.46 billion, as State funding rose 18% to €1.3 billion.
The bulk of the spend at €1.1 billion went on road construction and improvement projects - a rise of 17% on the €868.7m spent under that heading in 2019.
Last year, TII completed the N25 New Ross by-pass with five national road projects progressing to construction and 21 national road major projects in early planning.
TII’s spend on public private partnership road schemes’ operational charges last year more than doubled, from €73m to €148m.
The reports concerning two schemes where traffic guarantee payments apply - the Limerick tunnel and the M3 Clonee-Kells road scheme - show that €10.9m was payable by TII to the Directroute company operating the tunnel and €4m to the firm operating the M3 tolled route due to agreed traffic targets not being met.
The number of people at TII earning over €100,000 last year totalled 47, compared to 39 in that earning bracket in 2019.
Four of the 47 earned over €150,000.
