The Western Ring Road. Credit:Paul Rovere Mr Roth said the RACQ has not yet devised an alternative, but questions the current situation. "We don't think the current road pricing regime has delivered good outcomes," he said. Professor Mark Hickman, the chair of Transport at the University of Queensland's School of Civil Engineering agrees the tollways are not successful in the short-term. "The traffic that used to use nothing but Kingsford Smith Drive, for example, some of that has diverted onto the Airport Link," Professor Hickman said.

"The dilemma is that once that traffic moved off Kingsford Smith Drive people say 'Hey its not as bad as it used to be', I'm going to use Kingsford Smith Drive," he said. "And that can make the congestion worse, as I guess you are noting." Professor Hickman said it was too early to say if Brisbane's tollways were failures. "The current situation is that most tollways in Australia are not reaching the volumes that people expected, nor are they alleviating congestion in the way people expected them to do." Fairfax Media has compared the travel time for two sections of roads - directly above the Clem 7 tunnel and the Airport Link tunnel - for two periods; January to June 2014 and from July to December 2014.

The change in travel time on the section from Ipswich Road to Main Street to Bradfield Highway (the Story Bridge) link measures the impact of the Clem 7 tunnel, which runs underneath. The change in travel time on Lutwyche Road and Bowen Bridge Road – directly over a section of Airport Link – and Kingsford Smith Drive, measures the impact of the Airport Link tunnel. The time travelled shows both morning peak hour traffic and afternoon peak hour traffic. What it shows - summary The results show a six-second time saving in the morning peak on Ipswich Road and Mains Road over Clem 7, and a 21-second improvement in the afternoon peak on Bowen Bridge Road, over Airport Link.

However, travel times have sunk dramatically in the afternoon peak over the Story Bridge, Mains Road, and Ipswich Road at Woolloongabba and down Bowen Bridge Road in the morning. Travel times have also worsened on Kingsford Smith Drive (Airport Link) and on Vulture and Stanley streets (Clem7). Clem 7 now carries an average of just 26,325 vehicles per day, a one per cent increase since December 2013 (source: Transurban) One traffic forecasting company predicted Clem7 would carry 100,000 cars a day, however a Fairfax Media report in 2009 showed those figures were 50,000 higher than a second traffic forecaster working for Brisbane City Council. The March 2015 results show:

Ipswich Road/Mains Road and Bradfield Highway (Story Bridge) - Clem 7 alternative Morning peak hour: January to June 2014 – 21 minutes and 24 seconds per journey. Morning peak hour: July to December 2014 – 21 minutes and 18 seconds per journey. Result: A six second time saving. Afternoon peak hour: January to June 2014 - 18 minutes and 18 seconds per journey.

Afternoon peak hour: July to December 2014 - 19 minutes and 3 seconds per journey. Result: A 45-second worsening in travel time. Lutwyche Road and Bowen Bridge Road - Airport Link alternative Morning peak: January to June 2014 - 7 minutes and 49 seconds per journey. Morning peak: July to December 2014 - 8 minutes and 32 seconds per journey.

Result: A 43-second worsening in travel time. Afternoon peak: January to June 2014 - 7 minutes and 23 seconds per journey. Afternoon peak: July to December 2014 - 7 minutes and 2 seconds per journey. Result: A 21 second time saving in the afternoon peak. Kingsford Smith Drive - Airport Link alternative

Morning peak: January to June 2014 - 10 minutes and 12 seconds per journey. Morning peak: July to December 2014 - 10 minutes and 30 seconds per journey. Result: A 22 second worsening in travel time. Afternoon peak: January to June 2014 - 8 minutes and 37 seconds per journey. Afternoon peak: July to December 2014 - 8 minutes and 39 seconds per journey.

Result: A two second worsening in travel time. Transurban shows an estimate of the time savings for motorists if they use Clem 7 on their website, however the traffic using the tunnel reduced by 0.1 per cent in the December 2014 quarter. Mr Roth said the two toll tunnels had absorbed some of the "traffic growth", in the inner-city but said their impact was very disappointing. "Their numbers show they have relatively little impact on the overall level of congestion," Mr Roth said. "Even for roads that would be considered parallel routes," he said.

He said five years was a suitable time period to begin to see an improvement in travel times. "The improvement should have been seen straight away and some improvement was seen straight away on those corridors when the toll roads opened," he said. At that point, both Clem 7 and Airport Link tunnel opened free of charge and later introduced tolls in stages. Mr Roth said the latest figures showed neither Clem 7, nor Airport Link tunnel were having a significant impact on Brisbane's traffic. "The problem we are seeing now is that traffic volume on the roads is not growing strongly, despite the fact that overall traffic is growing," he said.

"We hoped to see both Clem 7 and Airport Link catering for a lot more vehicles by now." "The traffic volumes appear to be stagnating at very low levels." Mr Roth said tolls were the main problem. The RACQ believes Brisbane's newest tunnel Legacy Way – to open by mid-year – will improve traffic on Coronation Drive and on Milton Road, both of which did improve travel times. However Mr Roth doubts it will not reach its traffic projections, published at 34,000 per day.

"Traffic will use it, the question is how much of the traffic will use it," he said. "It will mean big savings on Milton Road and Coronation Drive should also improve." Professor Hickman said he had no silver bullet for the toll operators. "Many places in Australia tend to be very sensitive to price," he said. "The kinds of situations where people are more willing to pay more money to travel on those toll roads doesn't necessarily mean they will use it every day.

"They may just use it when certain circumstances, when they need the reliable travel times, or when reliability in the network is more important than the price." Tunnel fast facts - The Clem 7 tunnel from Woolloongabba to Bowen Hills opened five years ago, on March 15 in 2010. - Clem 7's average daily traffic dropped by 0.1 per cent to 26,325 trips in the December quarter. - It was predicted to carry 100,000 vehicles a day.

- For the past six months, Clem 7's average daily traffic dropped 1 per cent to 26,550 trips (source: Transurban). - The Airport Link tunnel from Bowen Hills to Brisbane Airport opened two years later on July 25, 2012. - Transurban now owns Clem 7, the Go Between Bridge, Legacy Way and the Gateway motorways.