by The week before Christmas left many travelers reeling as hundreds of trains were cancelled, motorways closed and ferry passengers queued in the thousands waiting to board their ships.
But it doesn’t have to be this way, according to transport campaigners, because politicians and transport leaders have the power to alleviate some of the problems facing travelers.
There is more gloom to come in the short term, according to the RAC, with a Boxing Day traffic surge, and the prospect of dangerous winds in Scotland and northern England.
Around 21 million people drove to visit family or friends before Christmas, while thousands more took flights or trains in what is known as the great Christmas rush.
Storm Pia disrupted rail and roads in Scotland and northern England on Wednesday. Eurostar workers in France went on industrial action the following day, resulting in huge demand for ferry services. Drivers queued for 90 minutes during peak times.
Saturday was expected to be the busiest day of the year on the roads, according to the RAC and Inrix, with 20% more car journeys than last Christmas weekend.
On Boxing Day they expect drivers on the M25 to be delayed by 50 minutes, while on December 27 journeys in busy areas of the UK will be 25% longer.
On Saturday Port Dover Travel reported a 90-minute wait at French border controls as traffic surged following a surge in ferry bookings following Thursday’s Eurotunnel disruption.
And the Met Office is warning of high winds in Scotland, northern England and north Wales today, with possible power cuts and flying debris.
While the weather may be out of the control of ministers and rail chiefs, they have other ways to ease the burden on travellers, according to the Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) and the Clean Cities Campaign ( CCC).
National Highways completed 1,000 miles of roadworks on December 19 – an “early Christmas present” for motorists during the Christmas period. They will be back on January 2.
Extensive engineering works are planned for the rail network, although Network Rail said they were doing less work than usual, with no trains running on Christmas Day.
In London, Paddington station is closed until Wednesday for HS2 works, while King’s Cross is closed today and Victoria station is not operating on Southeastern services until January 2.
And passengers will be gambling with services from operators such as Avanti West Coast, which cut services in December and has 32% of services canceled or severely delayed.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” said Michael Solomon Williams, CAP campaign manager.
“It is not reasonable to distinguish between commuting travel and leisure travel.”
Since the pandemic, fewer people travel during the week, he said.
“People work on weekends, they go to football games. There are all sorts of reasons why we need more services at weekends and Christmas, when people are traveling around the country more than any other time.
“Another time makes more sense, like the second week of January, or on Monday, for example.”
He added that another balm for travelers would be the creation of Great British Railways, announced by the government in May 2021 but scrapped in October 2022. And passengers are being told to pay an extra 4.9% on rail fares in the new year.
“They could have frozen fees as they have with fuel duty for the last 13 years,” said Solomon Williams. “The cost of traveling by train has increased at twice the rate of driving.”
Oliver Lord, head of the CCC, said people were more likely to choose to take the car if services were disrupted on the busiest travel days of the year, adding to congestion.
“A third of rail use is now recreational,” he said. “If a family wants to use trains three or four times a year to get out of town, and their experience is engineering works, a rail replacement bus service and journeys that take three hours as long, what do they think?
“It’s a great opportunity for the government to make a strategic decision,” Lord added. “If we said the first week or two of January was a time when businesses and corporations could do things differently, with more working from home, that would be a great new year’s resolution from the government.”
Travelers who have been canceled or delayed should make sure they claim compensation, said Naomi Leach, deputy editor of Which one of them? Travel.
“Sadly, it seems that major travel disruptions over the Christmas period are becoming more common, with travelers facing the misery of canceled trains as they try to get home in time for Christmas ,” she said.
“If your train is canceled or delayed, make sure you make a note of your ticket number and register a claim through Delay Refund, a national scheme to compensate rail passengers for delays of 15 minutes or more.
“Eurostar has its own compensation scheme in place for delays of an hour or more which accepts claims from 24 hours after the disruption.”
