Congestion charge rakes in £1m and sways the critics

London's congestion charge will collect about £500,000 in fines from its first day when roughly 10,000 motorists – five times the expected number – failed to pay before the midnight deadline.

With 100,000 other people having paid the £5 charge, the scheme will collect roughly £1m from its first day of operation in the capital, twice as much as expected.

Traffic levels yesterday were only marginally higher than on Monday, the first day of the half-term holiday, when road use was 25 per cent lower than on a typical day. With predictions of chaos and gridlock outside the zone also awry, Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, hailed the scheme a success and Monday "one of the best days in traffic flow we have had in living memory".

The Government quickly moved off the fence to embrace the success: Mr Livingstone said that John Spellar, the minister of Transport, phoned to congratulate him and quipped that "the devil looks after his own". Mr Spellar had previously been non-committal on the scheme, reportedly asking his own department to investigate any legal basis that could undermine it.

Now, Mr Livingstone suggested, the Department of Transport and the Treasury would be looking again at road charging schemes that they had been wary of implementing before Monday.

The focus will shift to enforcement of those who do not pay. Non-payers would have "no excuses", Mr Livingstone added, and the first of the £80 fines – reducible to £40 if paid within 14 days – will arrive by the end of the week. "We are not going to allow freeloaders to ride on the back of thousands of law abiding Londoners," Mr Livingstone said.

Of the 100,000 who did pay, 40 per cent did so at garages, 30 per cent by the call centre, 20 per cent by the internet and 10 per cent by text message.

The Tories, who oppose the charges, claimed yesterday the first day of operation had not run as smoothly as expected. They claimed many people could not get through to call centres. Tim Collins, the shadow Transport Secretary, said: "Transport for London cannot really be happy that 10,000 people did not pay – even if they may be counting on getting £80 fines from each of them. Making a profit out of inefficiency is of dubious legitimacy on day one – it would be a major public scandal if it continues into the future."

Staff working for Transport for London's (TfL) contractor Capita were sorting through the list of 10,000 numberplates and comparing them with vehicle owner details..

TfL declined to give running totals on how many of the 10,000 had been processed and led to fines and how many had been rejected.

Yesterday, registrations were running high again: by mid-afternoon, 35,764 people had paid, in addition to 30,000 who had registered and paid the previous day.

¿ One of the two Tube lines closed after last month's Underground train crash reopened yesterday. Trains resumed running at lunchtime on the Waterloo & City line. There is still no reopening date for the Central line.