CONTRACTS worth £270 million have been signed by Highways England with two companies who will continue to operate the toll charge system at the Dartford Crossing.

Contracts, which span ten years have been awarded to Conduent and emovis, who will primarily operate the existing Dartford Crossing free-flow charging scheme, Dart Charge.

Tolls at the crossing were removed in 2014 and the vehicle registration charging system introduced.

The charging service will be operated by Conduent and covers the day to day operation of the free-flow charging service, detecting and matching vehicle and customer records, managing accounts and processing payments.

Enforcement company emovis will be in charge of enforcement activities for vehicles registered in the UK, such as issuing and handling penalty charge notices and payment processing.

The contract for non-UK enforcement services has still to be awarded.

Malcolm Dare, executive director of commercial and procurement at Highways England, said: "We are delighted to announce the awards of the first two contracts for the second generation of free flow charging at Dartford Crossing.

"The removal of the payment booths and introduction of free-flow charging at Dartford in 2014 not only helped to reduce congestion for the growing number of people using the crossing, it also provided much more flexibility for people to pay and we're extremely excited to be working alongside Conduent and emovis as we move into the next phase of free flow charging at Dartford."

We are also delighted to continue our longstanding relationship with Highways England".

Key facts and figures:

135,000 design capacity of the existing Dartford Crossing

165,000 average numbers of journeys made at the crossing each day

197,848 highest ever number of journeys at Dartford in a single date (2 November 2015)

41,152 the lowest number of vehicles to use the crossing on a single day (9 January 2015)

Two tunnels and one bridge – what the Dartford Crossing consists of; the tunnels carrying northbound traffic with the bridge southbound

16 miles east of central London – location of Dartford Crossing

1963 the year of opening for the first Dartford River Crossing tunnel (the west tunnel), at a cost of £13m

1980 – year of opening for the second tunnel, costing £45m

1991 – year of opening of the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, it cost £120m to build

The QEII bridge is 812 metres long, and the tunnels 1,435m and 1,446m.

More information about Dart Charge and the crossing can be found here