Partly because of these criticisms further work was done to present forecasts at the Inquiry. The most critical element is the willingness to pay the toll. Motorway service areas were used to ask drivers if they would use the toll road. As you can see from the enclosed results taken from MEL's evidence, the results of these questionnaires showed huge variations in potential traffic. Indeed, it is not even clear that people will do what they said.
Human nature appears extremely adept at avoiding toll booths and finding rat runs.
In our view, the market research, on which the company is basing its traffic predictions, is flawed, out of date, and gives little confidence that the road will be used, for a number of reasons. The A38 and A5 run parallel. They are toll free. For much of the day they are uncongested, particularly the A38. BNRR is not comparable with a toll bridge, precisely because it has no monopoly.