Traffic news live: Easter travellers warned of train chaos and airport strikes with 19 million to hit UK roads
AA estimates 19 million to drive on Good Friday, followed by 18 million on Saturday
People heading on an Easter getaway this weekend are facing travel chaos, as multiple train lines close and millions hit the road.
Traffic queues are expected to form along major roads, as people try to get ahead of the estimated 19 million people expected to drive on Good Friday.
Heavy rain forecast by the Met Office could also disrupt journeys, the RAC has warned, as a yellow rain warning has been put in place across the south west of England.
Train passengers are also being warned over disruption as Network Rail prepares to begin its Easter engineering work - closing a number of railway lines.
The most significant impact will be at London Euston – which will have no services to or from Milton Keynes on Saturday and Easter Sunday, and a reduced timetable on Good Friday and Monday.
Those planning on flying to their Bank Holiday destinations will also face “major disruption”, as Gatwick airport workers are set to strike over pensions.
A14 reopens after collision closes route for eight hours
Earlier this morning, a major collision closed a section of the A14 for several hours.
National Highways said the A14 westbound in Cambridgeshire was closed between J22 (Brampton) Interchange and J20 (Ellington) due to a serious multi-vehicle collision.
The section reopened shortly before 11:30am, after being closed at 3:27am.
Disruption at Liverpool Lime Street
A number of trains were cancelled and dozens more delayed at Liverpool Lime Street this morning.
Merseyrail services to and from Chester were disrupted after an earlier points failure at the station.
National Rail said though the lines have now reopened, disruption is expected until 11:30am.
Easter train journeys to be disrupted by more than 300 engineering projects
Train passengers are being warned over disruption as Network Rail prepares to begin its Easter engineering work.
The Government-owned company said it will carry out work on more than 300 projects across Britain between Good Friday and Monday, causing a number of lines to be closed.
The most significant impact will be at London Euston which will have no services to or from Milton Keynes on Saturday and Easter Sunday, and a reduced timetable on Good Friday and Monday.
Services on the West Coast Main Line between Saturday and Monday will start and terminate at Carlisle, with replacement buses serving stations to the north.
Platforms 1-8 will be closed at London Victoria, meaning no Southeastern trains will serve the station over the four-day bank holiday period.
Services will be diverted to London Bridge or London Cannon Street.
Engineering work in the Southampton and Brockenhurst areas will close various lines in the region.
How many people are expected to be on the road this weekend?
The Easter bank holiday weekend is one of the busiest periods of the year for travelling on UK roads.
The AA estimated that 19.1 million people in the UK will drive on Good Friday, with 18.5 million hitting the road on Saturday and 18.2 million on each of Easter Sunday and Monday.
This means a total of 74 million journeys will be made across the weekend.
'Drivers may have journeys disrupted by heavy rain', says RAC
RAC breakdown spokesperson Alice Simpson has said that if forecasted heavy rain becomes a reality “many drivers may have their journeys disrupted as they set off for day trips and long weekends”.
She added: “It’s vital to plan ahead and be prepared for trips to take longer because of the wet weather and the expected getaway congestion.”
Ms Simpson said an estimated 6.2 million people are “undecided” on when they will travel for an Easter leisure trip, which means “any sign of sun” could spark “big jams”.
Yellow rain warning hits south west of England on Easter Weekend
A yellow rain warning has been put in place across the south west of England on Good Friday and Saturday and traffic is set to amp up across the country.
The Met Office said the warning involved a “prolonged spell of rain, some of it heavy, will likely cause difficult driving conditions and some disruption to travel.”
Cornwall, Devon, Plymouth and Torbay are affected by the warning.
Dover departures running smoothly – but delays predicted coming back from Calais over the Easter weekend
At 9am, the Port of Dover posted on X (formerly Twitter): "There is currently an approximate 10-minute processing time for tourists. The approach roads to the Port remain clear."
In previous years, Dover has been the scene of severe delays during the Easter holidays, as coaches converge on the UK’s main ferry port. Passport checks for France are conducted at the port before travellers board ferries.
But the chief executive of Port of Dover, Doug Bannister, told The Independent: “We've got all of our planning in place, we've done all of our traffic predictions, we've provided all that information to partners around the port, including Police aux Frontières, and they have stepped up.”
The failure of the European Union to introduce the entry-exit scheme as promised in November 2024 means journeys should be smoother, with no need for vehicle occupants to be fingerprinted or photographed.
The biggest problem faced by motorists is likely to be returning from France to Dover between Saturday 19 and Monday 21 April.
Last weekend queues of 90 minutes built up for the border formalities at Calais, where both French and UK frontier staff check documents before passengers board their ferries.
Further congestion may be triggered by European visitors to the UK being unaware that they now need an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) permit to visit. They will be able to apply for one on the spot, but this may increase delays at UK Border Control at Calais.
Good Friday set to busiest at almost all UK airports – with Heathrow-Edinburgh the top domestic route.
All the leading holiday airports except Edinburgh have told The Independent their busiest day will be Friday 18 April; at the Scottish capital’s airport, Sunday will see the most passengers.
Edinburgh is the destination for the most popular domestic route, British Airways from London Heathrow. BA also takes the next three places, with links from Heathrow to Glasgow, Belfast City and Aberdeen.
Four of the top 10 routes serve Belfast (City and International). The Manchester-Heathrow route is expected to be busy from Saturday to Monday because of the closure of the southern end of the West Coast main rail line for engineering work.
Top 10 domestic routes 18-21 April (source: Cirium)
Heathrow to Edinburgh: 7,353 seats
Heathrow to Glasgow: 6,616 seats
Heathrow to Belfast City: 4,458 seats
Heathrow to Aberdeen: 4,178 seats
Stansted to Edinburgh: 4,128 seats
Stansted to Belfast International: 3,939 seats
Manchester to Belfast International: 3,867 seats
Manchester to Heathrow: 3,738 seats
Belfast International to Edinburgh: 3,711 seats
Gatwick to Jersey: 3,501 seats
Where will the worst traffic be over Easter? These are the predictions from The Independent
The AA and RAC agree the busiest day over the Easter spell will be Thursday 17 April, with 19.8 million motorists in their vehicles at some stage of the day. Good Friday looks almost as busy. Easter Sunday will see the lightest traffic.
The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, said the government is “lifting 1,127 miles of roadworks over Easter and cracking down on disruptive street works to make journeys to see loved ones as smooth as possible”.
But the RAC predicts a “hat trick of hold-ups” on Thursday 18, Friday 19 and Saturday 20 April – marking the busiest Easter weekend since busiest since 2022, which was the first full escape after the Covid pandemic.
For holiday journeys within the UK, The Independent has used data from previous years to predict the heaviest traffic on four key arteries:
- M6 north of Birmingham, especially Preston and beyond as holidaymakers head for Blackpool and the Lake District.
- M5 southwest from Birmingham to Bristol and Exeter
- A303 southwest through Wiltshire
- M25 particularly between the M23 and M40 junctions to the southwest, and the Dartford Crossing to the east.
Dublin leads all other destinations for British travellers heading abroad for Easter
Dublin is way ahead of cities worldwide as the leading destination for Easter travel from the UK, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
During the Easter weekend, 11,282 flights are scheduled to depart UK airports, with more than two million seats.
Good Friday is projected to be the busiest day of the weekend, with 2,949 departures – an average of one flight taking off from a UK airport every 30 seconds.
More flights will be going to Dublin than anywhere else. Almost 70,000 passengers are heading for the Irish capital between Good Friday and Easter Monday – more than those going to Paris, Madrid and Rome combined.
In the top 30 compiled exclusively for The Independent, Amsterdam takes second place. The Irish and Dutch capitals are followed by the three most popular Spanish airports – Alicante, Malaga and Palma – and, in sixth place, Dubai.
Faro, the gateway to the Portuguese Algarve, appears at seventh. Tenerife and Barcelona are eighth and ninth respectively, with Paris CDG taking 10th place.
Spain is by far the most popular destination, taking five of the top 10 spots,The remainder of the top 30 provides some intriguing revelations. Turkey is well represented, with Antalya at 11 and Istanbul at 16. The second Turkish Riviera airport, Dalaman, takes 25th spot.
The top long-haul destination, Dubai, has almost 50 per cent more capacity than New York – the only US city to appear, in 12th place. But British travellers take Manhattan well ahead of Berlin; the German capital has barely half as many departing seats and appears at 26th.
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