Striving to improve the Dart Charge service for customers

While Dart Charge has attracted criticism in the media in the last year, we want to make clear that we’re constantly striving to improve our service, correcting any issues quickly, always with customer feedback in mind.  

BBC East recently reported about an increase in crossing payments not made on time since a change in service provider last summer.  

In the wider context, however, more than 94 per cent of journeys made using the Dartford Crossing are paid correctly and on time, and we are pleased to offer different types of accounts and numerous payment options to suit everyone’s needs.   

Avoiding penalties  

We understand that anything associated with finances can be stressful, and we work hard to help people avoid a penalty wherever possible.  

Enforcement agents are only ever used as a last resort to chase up non-payment. Before any enforcement takes place multiple notices, including Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs), are sent about unpaid charges to the registered keeper of the vehicle using DVLA records.  

Rather than ignoring penalties, it’s important for customers to contact us early, so we can resolve any issues openly and fairly without the need for additional fees.   

It’s always easiest for customers to pay on time, every time. All money collected by Dart Charge is passed directly to the UK Government and invested back into transport improvements.  

Meeting our customers’ needs  

We know people’s needs vary and that’s why we offer a dedicated call centre which is open 8am to 8pm every day. Our call centre staff are trained to offer reasonable adjustments and support tailored to meet everyone’s needs.  

As part of our updated service, we completely redesigned our website based on user research and to meet accessibility standards. We use customer feedback to continually develop the website and our service.  

We know that customers who choose to open an account have every intention of paying for their crossings. Our aim is to make it quick and easy for them to pay.  

To support this, we have: 

• Introduced SMS notifications to update customers directly on their account activity. 
• Introduced an account suspension period, which gives account holders more time to rectify any issues before a penalty is issued. 

Card revalidation 

We regret that some customers have experienced issues with their Dart Charge accounts since the transition to our new supplier due to card revalidation issues.  

Since March 2022, all UK card payments are now required to include strong customer authentication. This is to stop someone’s credit or debit card from being used without their authorisation.  

As a result, previous card payment authorisation on customers’ Dart Charge accounts could not be transferred between providers. Before the transition, we sent clear advice to customers about the actions they needed to take to keep their account active. 

To protect our customers from penalties, following transition to the new service provider, we extended the time customers had to pay for crossings and the time for account holders to revalidate payment cards due to the initial technical difficulties we faced.   

During this period PCNs were held to allow users more time to pay or take other actions. This meant that when PCNs were issued, the time since the crossing date was longer than it would usually be. This had no impact on the value of the PCN and customers still had the same amount of time to pay or challenge PCNs.  

While this isn’t the service we aspire to achieve, all PCNs were issued in line with The Road User Charging Scheme (Penalty Charges, Adjudication and Enforcement) (England) Regulations 2013.  

Importantly, the backlog of PCNs we had experienced following the changes last year has been cleared and they are being issued within one-to-two weeks of an unpaid crossing being made. 

Protecting customers from penalties issued in error  

BBC East also reported on cases where people received PCNs for crossings when Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) had mistaken another vehicle for theirs or did not read the licence plate correctly. 

These are a small minority of cases. When penalty charges are issued in error, 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. 

The Dart Charge system automatically reads number plates and captures images of the vehicle at the time of crossing. Manual checks are conducted where the quality of the image falls below a certain level due to factors like weather, lighting, or speed of travel. This can mean that a crossing is not immediately available on the website or on a customers’ account.  

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. 

Separately, prior to any penalty charges being issued a manual image review is undertaken.   

Contacting us  

Customers who do not believe a penalty charge is payable should submit a challenge along with any evidence to support this. The PCN letter provides clear information on the various options available to do this. The easiest way to do this is online.  

It’s important for customers to contact us early (online, via phone, by email or by post), so we can resolve any issues openly and fairly without the need for additional fees.  

We offer an 8am to 8pm daily telephone service with current wait times of less than a minute, we continue to improve our website using customer feedback, which offers 24/7 access to accounts, and we can also be contacted by post and by email.