WORK has begun on refurbishing booths on the Tamar Bridge toll plaza.

The six toll booths are approaching 20 years old with most of them now experiencing a range of problems such as leaking roofs, leaking and damaged windows, as well as obsolete mechanical and electrical equipment.

A temporary workspace has been built in the bridge compound on the Tamar Crossings site that will allow the booths to be refurbished and fitted out with new windows, doors and upgraded mechanical and electrical systems.

Each booth is expected to take six to eight weeks to complete, depending on its condition.

Just last month, it was reported how card payment times for users had been cut in half thanks to the implementation of new and faster readers at all the toll booths.

Whereas the average time for a payment to be processed was previously taking around 17 seconds, changes made have now slashed that figure to around six seconds, making it an easier and speedier experience for those crossing the River Tamar from Cornwall.

With a daily average of 44,000 vehicles crossing the bridge, the need to keep a constant eye on the traffic trends is something that is certainly keeping staff busy as they look to maintain a high standard of service for those who use the cross-border crossing.

Coral Jonas, Tamar Bridge manager, said: “We did an analysis of the toll plaza and it was quick to see our payment speeds, especially for those people using cards, were not as fast as they could be.

“It was taking on average around 17 seconds to process card payments and in some cases, it could take up to 40 seconds. We’ve put in some new machines and now we have brought the processing speed down to six seconds, making a huge difference to the traffic flow across the bridge.”