The start of the peak summer season is set to bring millions of drivers on to British roads, with concerns of traffic chaos as the port of Dover faces its biggest test yet of new EU border controls.
The semi-functioning entry-exit system (EES) is credited, along with the heatwaves and fears about flights after the war in Iran, with helping push British domestic holidays to its highest levels since Covid halted international travel.
Motoring organisations expect this Friday to kick-off the busiest summer weekend for domestic leisure trips.
The port of Dover is bracing for long tailbacks as thousands of holidaymakers join lorries at Britain’s main Channel ferry crossing from 6am.
French border police, situated at Dover, will manually register non-EU travellers for EES. The new £40m automated facility built to speed through passengers is unable to operate due to software problems in the technology in France.
Even though the French police aux frontières (PAF) will not be able to carry out the biometric registration required by EES – photographing and fingerprinting – the additional time needed to create a file for each visitor could still lead to long queues at the border, the port fears.
About 7,500 cars travelling to France are expected at Dover on Friday, and 10,000 on Saturday, as peak summer season begins.
The port has urged holidaymakers to use only main roads when driving to the port, and arrive no more than two hours before their booked sailing.
Eurotunnel, operator of LeShuttle, which takes vehicles through the Channel tunnel, said that it did not anticipate delays as summer traffic built up. As at Dover, border police will still not be registering biometric information from its car passengers for EES this summer. Eurotunnel has likewise spent millions of pounds on automated processing kiosks which cannot yet be brought into service.
Elsewhere, the RAC and Inrix expect the worst of the traffic on Friday in areas of the M25 around Greater London linking to the M3 to the southwest, as more than 14 million drivers make a getaway this weekend.
With most schools in England and Wales closing this weekend for the summer, most leisure journeys will take place on Saturday, the RAC said, as part of the biggest domestic getaway since 2022.
Spokesperson Harriet Hernando said: “The great British summer staycation is about to get off to a flying start, with many opting to stay in the UK instead of travelling abroad. This could be down to people having more confidence in the weather, as well as concerns over cancelled flights, higher air fares and EU border delays, which are no fun with a family in tow.”
But she warned that the June heatwave had seen a spike in breakdowns and urged drivers to be prepared for what the RAC called a “Saturday summer scramble”, adding: “People should prepare for delays and getting stuck in a jam in potentially very hot weather.”
The AA meanwhile said its surveys showed about one in five drivers would be setting off on a leisure journey of 100 miles or more in the next week, the busiest week of the summer for road trips, with more potentially drawn to the coast if hot weather persists.
London Heathrow airport said this weekend would see the start of its peak summer season, with Friday likely to be the busiest day. Travel association Abta expects the main getaway for Britons going abroad to follow next weekend.
Passengers flying into the Schengen area of 29 EU countries will undertake EES formalities at the airport on landing and departure.
Europe’s biggest carrier, Ryanair, warned again this week that UK passengers could be “the testing ground for unfinished border infrastructure”, and told customers to prepare for long possible queues. It identified a number of popular holiday airports including Lisbon, Tenerife South, Alicante, Malaga and Milan Bergamo as “recurring hotspots” for EES-related delays.