The ANWB expects Black Saturdays to be busier than usual this year. This has everything to do with the problems at airports, which presumably means that more people want to go on holiday by car. The traffic organization expects travelers to be stuck in traffic jams more often and longer this year. “Vacationers are actually better off not traveling on Saturdays.”
In France, five Saturdays in July and August have been designated as so-called black Saturdays this year, on which families leave en masse for their holiday destination. Tomorrow is the first black Saturday of this summer.
A spokesperson tells NU.nl that the ANWB expects large crowds, especially in the south of France and the Autoroute du Soleil. In addition, it can be extra busy in the French-Swiss border area this weekend due to the Tour de France.
The spokesperson emphasizes that it will differ per traveler how long he will ultimately be in a traffic jam. “If you leave in the morning, you have a chance that you will end up right in the middle of the traffic jam. If you leave later in the evening, you will probably follow the traffic jams,” said the spokesman. This is one of the reasons why he cannot provide a concrete forecast about the average traffic jam duration.
Due to the summer crowds, Austria considered to dose the traffic via the tunnels and passes on the routes to Italy and to Slovenia and Croatia, the ‘Blockabfertigung’. By allowing traffic on those roads in a controlled manner, traffic jams can also occur on the roads in Germany. That while there is work being done on the road in more than nine hundred places.
The ANWB expects that it will be busier on the road in the Netherlands from this Friday, because the schools in the Midden region will close their doors. From midday it will be especially busy towards the Veluwe, Wadden Islands and the coast of South Holland and Zeeland, according to the traffic organization. The North school region will follow a week later, while the South region will start the holiday on 23 July.