Highways England improves Dart Charge website

Highways England has launched the first stage of improvements to the Dart Charge website after fleet representative body ACFO highlighted several issues.

The first phase consists of improvements to the system’s vehicle registration mark (VRM) search facility, and the way VRM information is stored and accessed, including crossing history and payment history (see below).

The second phase, due to be introduced from mid-August, will provide the ability to pay for crossings on a specific date. This, says ACFO, will alleviate the chance of multiple charges to one vehicle.

The third update, due mid-September, will cover the removal of the warning letter, with only the PCN being issued, however, first offences will retain the opportunity to pay the reduced fee.

The update will also provide the facility to pay several PCN’s at once, rather than individually, together with the ability to add costs centres against a VRM on account and to pay for.

Change Name	Change Description
Pagination	For account holders, If there are more items in the current list than the selected page size (e.g. the account has 100 crossings, and the user has selected to display 20 items per page), pagination controls will be shown. The First and Previous page links won’t be shown on the first page, and the Next and Last page links won’t be shown on the last page.
Search VRM	Search functionality has been added so that when a VRM is selected from a list of automatically offered suggestions, clicking the “Find” button will display only the selected vehicle. Partial searches also work, e.g. typing “A” in the VRM search box and clicking “Find” will display only vehicles where the VRM starts with “A”.
View Added Date for VRMs	The date each vehicle was added to an account is also now displayed.
VRM Table Layout	Key data columns are sortable; the column name is now a link, and clicking it sorts the table by that column in ascending order. Clicking the same column name again will switch the sort order (e.g. if sorted by Class ascending, sort by Class descending and vice versa). Account vehicles are sorted by date added (descending) by default – i.e. newer vehicles shown first.
VRM Download	As normal you can download the full list of vehicles, you are also able to download any “filtered” vehicle list.
Crossing History Table Format	Crossing Date, Time, VRM, Direction, are present in the crossing history.
Crossing History Layout Input	Key data columns are also sortable; the column name is now a link, and clicking it sorts the table by that column in ascending order (a visual indicator marks it as such). Clicking the same column name again will switch the sort order (e.g. if sorted by Direction ascending, sort by Direction descending and vice versa). Account crossings are sorted by crossing date (descending) by default – i.e. newer crossings shown first.
Crossing History Download csv	As normal you can down download the full crossing history, you are also able to download any “filtered” history list.
Payment Table Format	Payment Date, Amount and Payment Reference Number are now present in the payment history table
Payment Table Layout Input	Key data columns are sortable; the column name is now a link, and clicking it sorts the table by that column in ascending order (a visual indicator marks it as such). Clicking the same column name again will switch the sort order (e.g. if sorted by Amount ascending, sort by Amount descending and vice versa). Account payments are sorted by payment date (descending) by default – i.e. newer payments shown first.
Payment Table Filtering	Payment Table filters have been made available to show payments by date for a select range; View All, Last 30 Days, and Custom Range. Clearing of previous input is achieved by selecting a different date filtering option (such as “View all”).
Payment Download	As normal you can download the full payment history, you are now also able to download any “filtered” history list.
Statement Table Layout Input	Statement table paging, sorting, and filtering has been implemented. Account statements are sorted by date descending by default – i.e. newer statements shown first.
Statement Download	The ability to download statements without viewing first has been implemented. A download option has been added to the statement list alongside the current viewing option.
Date Consistency	Dates in all four account listing pages (vehicles, crossings, payments, statements) and the related downloadable CSV files are formatted as standard “DD/MM/YYYY”.
Account Home Update	A top-up button has been added to the Account home page showing the payment amount input field. Only payments of at least £10 are allowed. Clicking elsewhere on the page (above or below the top up area) or navigating to an unrelated element using the keyboard automatically hides the payment amount input section until the button is clicked again.
Account Home Summary	On the Account home page a Vehicles summary has been added which lists vehicles registered to the account. If there are less than five vehicles the VRM details are displayed otherwise the number of vehicles is shown instead. A Crossings summary has been added; the number of crossings made in the last 30 days is shown on the Account Home page as requested. A Payments summary has been added; the last 5 payments are shown on the Account Home page as requested.