National Highways has issued an apology to drivers for issues with Dart Charge payments since the new contractor, Conduent, took over last weekend.

The payment system was scheduled to be offline over last weekend (29/30 July) when the contract for managing the payment process passed to Conduent, as former contract provider Emovis moved to handling only the penalty charge notices.

National Highways had warned the payment site would be down over the weekend but users were met with a fault message for much of the early part of the week when they were placed in a queue. Customers took to social media to complain.

National Highways says that, while users could still experience short delays, the average online wait time is now less than five minutes.

It has extended payment deadlines further to ensure everyone has enough time to pay the charge, so if drivers have a Dart Charge account they have until 31 August to update your payment card details on the website and for those who don’t have an account and use the crossing between 27 July and 14 August, they have until the 15 August to pay the charge.

(Screenshot – from Dart Charge website on 1 August when problems continued)