N6 Concession Ltd

The business

The N6 is a dual carriage motorway that runs from the West to East coast of Ireland connecting Galway and Dublin. The motorway was officially completed and opened to traffic in December 2009, and was Ireland’s first city-to-city direct major inter-urban route to be completed, and at 144 km is the third-longest motorway in the country.

N6 Concession Ltd operates 53 km stretch from Galway to Ballinasloe, including a toll plaza located at Cappataggle, between junctions 15 Ballinasloe West and 16 Loughrea.
 

The challenge

In early 2019, N6 Concession was looking to improve customer offering as well as achieve operational efficiencies whilst preventing revenue loss. Its card payment system was outdated and depended on an offline batching and card black list system which sometimes resulted in loss of payment. Mag stripe transactions processed offline would be declined once the batches were processed.

N6 Concession was looking for a payments partner that could assist it with PCI compliance to help keep its customers’ data safe.

It also wanted to improve the ability to pay by card or contactless and therefore reduce the number of customers who pay by cash at the toll booths.
 

The service

In its search for an upgrade to its payment systems, N6 Concession reached out to Elavon to provide an innovative solution.

“From the get go, when the Elavon sales manager came onsite with the technical consultant to understand the scope, there was superb support available to us. The wealth of technical knowledge from Elavon helped us find the right partners and create a plan for implementation. There wasn’t a technical question I asked, that they weren’t able to answer.” Shane Burke, Systems Manager N6 Concession
 

Elavon worked with N6 Concession to ensure a smooth and quick implementation process with no disruptions to customers or back office operations.
 

“The team at Elavon were very informative and helpful and there was great support available to us throughout the duration of the project as well as thereafter.”  Shane Burke, Systems Manager N6 Concession
 

As well as protecting the company’s revenue, the contactless payments has improved customer service that N6 Concession can offer and has enabled it to operate more efficiently.

This added method of payment was particularly beneficial during the pandemic because while N6 Concession was fully operational throughout the crisis, it meant it could remove toll operators from booths during full lockdown. This would not have been easy to do without introduction of this new technology.
 

“The N6 cuts out all the traffic and we use it coming off the ferry in Dublin on our way to Galway. It’s very convenient to have more payment options now, especially with contactless as it saves us travel time.” Nora Walsh, N6 Toll user
 

The solution has also been well received by N6 Concession staff.
 

“The feedback from our staff has been great. They love it. The new solutions gives them better confidence with customer management. The added benefit in this current COVID-19 environment is that contactless reduced the handling of coins, and decreased risk to our customers and staff.” Shane Burke, Systems Manager N6 Concession
 

In June 2019, the solution went live in all payment lanes and increased to the entire toll plaza, with a total of 14 NFC terminals when the pilot was complete and N6 Concession was satisfied that the solution was working impeccably. The solution is now handling an average of 40,000 transactions per month.
 

The Security

N6 Concession has also chosen PCI Secured by Elavon programme to help it keep its customers’ data safe and keep up-to-date with compliance. With Elavon’s PCI programme, N6 Concession is confident in the knowledge that it is protected with a reliable PCI security service behind its’ solution protecting its’ business.

“The PCI Secured by Elavon programme is really intuitive and easy to go through each quarter and if we ever need assistance, it’s always there for us.” Shane Burke, Systems Manager N6 Concession
 

Why Elavon?

N6 Concession chose Elavon for this solution because of the breadth of the product offering and the ability to tailor the options to its needs. The payment solution addressed all of N6 Concession’s pain points, whilst achieving economies of scale and enhancing the customer experience. Elavon was able to create a one-stop-shop solution through its partnerships and tested integrations in the transport space.

“In the end, we chose Elavon not just because of the product offering, but because of the outstanding support from a technical perspective and the customer service. The implementation was smooth and there isn’t a thing I can say that could have been done better. Elavon approached everything with a positive attitude and were ready to help every step of the way.” Shane Burke, Systems Manager N6 Concession