Urgent Alert Massive Influx of Easter Travelers Expected on Roads and Airports

Be careful if you’re traveling during Easter because there will be a lot of people on the roads, at airports, and on trains. Major construction work is also planned on the railways.
The RAC says trips on busy roads might take twice as long as usual, while airports in Bristol, Newcastle, and Edinburgh are expecting a lot of passengers. Arrange Rail will also do construction work between London Euston and Milton Keynes.

People traveling over Easter weekend are expected to experience delays in their road, rail, air, and sea journeys.
People in Britain have been warned that they might experience a lot of traffic and delays if they are going away for Easter. More than 14 million trips are expected on the roads, airports are expected to have a lot of people, and there will also be construction on some train services.

The RAC warned that trips on popular routes will take twice as long as usual because the bank holiday weekend is followed by a two-week holiday for many schools.

Trains will be stopped for a while because Organize Rail is doing construction on the West Coast Main Line. This line goes from London to Scotland, and the construction is happening between London Euston and Milton Keynes.

“Three big airports have said that the next few days will be their busiest Easter weekend ever. ”

Travel expert Simon Calder said that Bristol, Newcastle, and Edinburgh expect a lot of people to travel from Good Friday to Easter Monday. There will be a lot of people going to Geneva.

Approximately two million people from the UK are expected to travel over the holiday weekend, and Bristol is expecting 30,000 people to travel on Easter Sunday.

During school break, the airports will still be open. London Luton Airport is expecting 38 passengers on April 5.

Business airports like Heathrow will see “a lot of pressure today,”  according to Mr. Calder, who added that increased demand has been caused by Easter falling earlier than usual.

“With Easter Sunday on March 31,  a lot of schools are breaking up today, which is putting extra pressure on what would already be a busy Easter,” he said On Sunday, April 7, Gatwick and Southampton are set to see their busiest days.

No ‘good time’ for rail works

The West Coast Main Line will be closed between Good Friday and Easter Monday, with disruptions to rail services also expected in Glasgow and Huddersfield.

Laurence Bowman, Network Rail’s network strategy director, said earlier this week that there is “never a good time to do the work we need to do,”  but explained that a lower number of commuters over the bank holiday weekend gives them “the opportunity to do major work we couldn’t do in a normal weekend.”.

“We’ve got 493 different pieces of work taking place this Easter, most happening overnight,” he added, “including laying over 8,000 metres of new rail and putting down over 40,000 tonnes of new ballast to support the tracks.”

‘Carmageddon’

RAC spokesperson Alice Simpson warned it “could be carmageddon” over Easter and said heavy traffic and “lengthy queues can be expected along routes to the usual hotspots.”.

Inrix transportation analyst Bob Pishue also said that “drivers should be prepared for longer journeys than normal throughout the entire weekend.”.

Worst times to travel

A survey commissioned by the RAC and Inrix found that 2.6 million journeys are planned on Good Friday, with around 2.3 million trips expected for both Easter Saturday and Sunday.

Another two million trips are expected on Thursday and Easter Monday, and a further 3.3 million journeys are due with no clear starting date, making for a total of around 14.5 million journeys.

Inrix and Mr. Calder both separately predicted that the worst of the traffic is expected between 2pm and 7pm on Thursday, when holiday journeys mix with regular commutes.

Inrix added that the busiest route is set to be the western section of the M25 between the M23 for Gatwick and the M1 for Hertfordshire, where journeys from 4pm are tipped to take more than two hours, more than twice as long as usual.

The M5 southbound between Bristol and Taunton and the M3 between the M25 and the south coast are also likely to be congested, according to Inrix, with estimated journey times more than double what they normally are.

The survey, from research company Find Out Now, polled 2,136 UK adults.

A yellow weather warning for strong winds is also in effect on Thursday, with unsettled conditions from Storm Nelson likely to further disrupt travel.

The Met Office said the alert applies from 7am until 6pm on Thursday and extends in a band from locations such as St. Ives and Penzance in the South West across to Brighton.

weather producer Christopher England also said: “It’ll stay mostly unsettled into next week, with further heavy showers or longer spells of rain and 70mph gusts near Channel coasts, thanks to the Spanish-named Storm Nelson.”

More delays in Dover

Meanwhile, Britons taking ferries should be able to embark without much issue, with the exception of the Port of Dover, where French border staff check passports before leaving the UK.

In a statement, the port pointed to France’s heightened terror alert after the attack in Moscow, saying: “These measures may increase border processing times at the port.

“Please be mindful of this when travelling to the port and check with your ferry operator for arrival times.”

Last year saw severe delays and long queues at the port, with wait times stretching up to two hours.

Around 20,000 cars are expected to travel through Dover’s port between Thursday and Easter. A Coach Processing Facility has been set up in the Western Docks for Thursday and Saturday in a bid to ease travel.

Coach passengers and motorists will be processed away from the main port and then moved to the Eastern Port for a quick passport check before embarking on their ferry journey.