A “significant” second wave of Easter getaway traffic is to take place over this week, with around 15 million leisure car journeys expected to be taken in the run-up to Good Friday.
So says the RAC which is predicting lengthy queues in some spots, following the high levels of traffic seen at the start of April when schools broke up.
Today is expected to be particularly busy with some 4.7m individual getaway trips by car taking place, but there is expected to be sustained levels of leisure traffic in the run-up to Good Friday, when around 4.4m journeys expected to be taken by road.
Traffic data from mobility analytics provider INRIX indicates that jams will peak on Good Friday, with major routes clogging up between 11am and 4.30pm. The worst delays on this day are expected on the M5 southbound, passing west of Bristol (J16 to J19) – part of the popular holiday route towards Devon and Cornwall – the M25 anticlockwise from Bromley (J4) through the Dartford Tunnel to the A13 (J30), the M6 north between Preston (J31) and Lancaster (J34), and the M62 west between Leeds (J27) and Manchester (J18) where delays of around an hour are expected.
Fortunately for drivers, 99% of the motorways and major A-roads in England will be free of roadworks, with Highways England removing more than 450 miles of cones in time for the Easter bank holiday.
Dan Croft, incident group operations manager at INRIX, said: “For drivers looking to avoid the worst congestion, the best options are to travel on Saturday, set off early in the morning and keep updated with real-time traffic data.”
