Vacation traffic in full swing, leading to traffic jams on European highways

As expected, European highways are busy on Saturday due to holiday traffic, ANWB Traffic Information reports. Around 2:30 p.m., the peak seems to have passed, an employee reports, but traffic is still experiencing delays in many places.

On the famous Route du Soleil in France, for example, road users are still experiencing delays of "well over an hour" on the A6 and A7, the employee says. Traffic is also at a standstill on the motorway from Lyon to Orange.

Further west, on the A10 near Poitiers, an accident is causing extra delays on top of the holiday rush. Traffic heading south should expect an extra hour and a half of travel time.

At the Gotthard tunnel in Switzerland, towards Italy, the waiting time has increased to around two hours around 2:30 p.m. In the other direction, motorists are stuck in traffic for almost an hour. It is also busy at the Karawankentunnel in Austria, towards Slovenia, with an almost hour-long delay.

According to the ANWB, holiday traffic towards Austria on the A8 is common in Germany. "In all of Germany, you also have the 'Baustellen', more than 1200 road works," says an employee. "So you always have to deal with works there."

The ANWB already expected that holiday traffic would lead to crowds abroad on Saturday, although there is no talk of Black Saturday yet. Next Saturday and the Saturday after that, peak crowds are expected in France.

Since Friday afternoon, all schoolchildren in the Netherlands have had summer vacations now that the vacation days also started in the Northern region.

In the Netherlands, traffic is also very busy as "almost all roads to the coast" are packed with beachgoers, the ANWB reports. For instance, traffic is at a standstill on the through roads to Scheveningen and the Noord-Holland beaches of Zandvoort, Bloemendaal, and Castricum. It is also busy on various through routes on the Zeeland coast.

"On the highways, the traffic is still not too bad," says an employee of ANWB Traffic Information. "People get stuck in traffic for the last bit. Most of the main roads to the beaches are very busy now, and we hear that the parking garages on the coast of The Hague are filling up quickly."

The municipality of The Hague reports shortly before noon that there are no more parking spaces in Kijkduin and that the garages in Scheveningen are almost full. The municipality advises beachgoers to take a (shared) bike or to travel by public transport. The municipality of Zandvoort also offers this advice. "The roads to Zandvoort are very busy, and almost all parking spaces are full," according to the coastal municipality on X.

Het is echt strandweer in Zandvoort! ☀️Ben je van plan om naar het strand te gaan? Neem dan de fiets, deelscooter of ga met het OV. De wegen naar Zandvoort zijn heel druk en vrijwel alle parkeerplaatsen al vol.

— Gemeente Zandvoort (@ZandvoortaanZee) July 20, 2024