Road and rail chaos expected to affect millions over August bank holiday weekend
By Danielle Desouza
Millions of people are expected to face road and rail chaos over the forthcoming August bank holiday weekend. Loading audio...
Around 17.6 million car trips are planned to be made over the long weekend, which is expected to lead to long delays.
The RAC - which issued an alert about road congestion on Tuesday - warned drivers to leave as early as possible to avoid being stuck in queues.
Friday is expected to see around three million car journeys for holidays or day trips. This increases to 3.4 million on Saturday, and is 2.4 million on Sunday and 2.7 million on Monday.
Nick Mullender, the RAC mobile servicing and repairs team leader, said: "With this bank holiday being the last opportunity to enjoy a long weekend before Christmas, our study shows a real eagerness to get out and about with nearly 18 million drivers planning getaway trips.
Read more: Quarter of parents sacrifice food or heating to afford school uniform[2]
Read more: More than 14,000 Love Island complaints rejected by Ofcom[3]
Rail passengers are being warned that some major routes will be closed for engineering work as Network Rail carries out 261 projects across Britain. Picture: Alamy[4]
"More traffic on the roads will inevitably lead to more vehicle breakdowns, especially if the sun makes an appearance and people decide on the day to visit popular destinations.
"We're expecting major roads to airports and coastal destinations to be extremely busy, especially the South East and South West regions which could end up bearing the brunt of most holiday hold-ups.
Anyone planning routes through these areas should set off as early as possible or be prepared to spend longer in traffic."
In regards to rail, CrossCountry, the long-distance train operator, urged passengers not to travel on Saturday because of an RMT strike over the scanning of electronic tickets.
"It is hugely disappointing to not operate any services on Saturday, knowing the inevitable disruption to many of our passengers' journeys over the bank holiday weekend," Siona Rolfe, CrossCountry's managing director, said.
Some major rail routes will be closed for engineering work as Network Rail carries out 261 projects across Britain.
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Avanti West Coast is to operate a reduced and amended service to and from London Euston.
No services will operate between Birmingham New Street and Birmingham International between Saturday and Monday.
Helen Hamlin, Network Rail's chief network operator, said: "With the August bank holiday weekend approaching, we've carefully planned our engineering work to minimise disruption, allowing people to rely on the railway and make the most of the late summer bank holiday weekend.
"While the vast majority of the railway will be running, works on some parts of the network are unfortunately unavoidable, as we complete major work to support a better, more reliable railway that we wouldn't be able to complete in a normal weekend.
"So we're asking passengers to check their journeys in advance to ensure their route isn't affected."
References
- ^ Alamy (www.alamy.com)
- ^ Quarter of parents sacrifice food or heating to afford school uniform (www.lbc.co.uk)
- ^ More than 14,000 Love Island complaints rejected by Ofcom (www.lbc.co.uk)
- ^ Alamy (www.alamy.com)