There was a familiar sense of misery for many travellers in the week before Christmas as hundreds of trains were cancelled, motorways were closed and ferry passengers queued for miles waiting to board their ships.
But it doesn’t have to be this way, transport campaigners say, as politicians and transport bosses have the power to ease some of the problems facing travellers.
There is more gloom to come in the short term, according to the RAC, with Boxing Day traffic surging, and the prospect of dangerous winds in Scotland and northern England.
Around 21 million people drove to visit family or friends before Christmas, and thousands more took flights or trains as what has become known as the great Christmas getaway gained momentum.
Storm Pia caused disruption to rail and road in Scotland and northern England on Wednesday. Eurostar workers in France took industrial action the following day, and the knock-on effect was huge demand for ferry services. Motorists 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 face 50-minute delays, and on 27 December journeys in busy areas of the UK will be 25% longer.
On Saturday Port of Dover Travel reported a 90-minute wait at French border controls as traffic built up after a surge in ferry bookings in the wake of 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.
Even though the weather may be out of the control of ministers and rail chiefs, they have other ways of easing the burden on travellers, according to the Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) and the Clean Cities Campaign (CCC).
National Highways removed 1,000 miles of roadworks on 19 December – “an early Christmas present” for drivers during the festive getaway. They will be back on 2 January.
Widespread engineering works are planned for the rail network, although Network Rail said it was carrying out less work than usual, and no trains run on Christmas Day.
In London, Paddington station is shut until Wednesday for HS2 works, while King’s Cross is shut today and Victoria station is not running Southeastern services until 2 January.
And passengers will be gambling with services by operators such as Avanti West Coast, which cut services in December and has seen 32% of services cancelled or severely delayed.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” said Michael Solomon Williams, CBT campaigns manager.
“It’s not rational any more to distinguish between commuter travel and leisure travel.”
Since the pandemic, fewer people travel during the week, he said.
“People work weekends, go to football matches. There are all sorts of reasons why we need more services at weekends and Christmas, when people travel around the country more than any other time.
“Another time makes more sense, like the second week of January, or on a Monday, for example.”
He added that another balm for travellers would be the creation of Great British Railways, announced by the government in May 2021 but mothballed 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 fares the way they have with fuel duty for the last 13 years,” Solomon Williams said. “The cost of travelling by train has gone up at twice the rate of driving.”
Oliver Lord, head of CCC, said that disrupting services on the busiest travel days of the year meant people were more likely to choose to take the car, adding to congestion.
“A third of rail use now is on leisure,” he said. “If the three or four times a year a family wants to use trains to get out of town, and their experience is engineering works, a rail replacement bus service and journeys that take three times as long, what will 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 a bit differently, with more working from home, that would be a great new year’s resolution from the government.”
Travellers who have faced cancellations or delays should make sure they claim compensation, said Naomi Leach, deputy editor of Which? Travel.
“Sadly, it seems as though serious travel disruption over the festive period is becoming increasingly commonplace, with travellers once again facing the misery of cancelled trains as they try to make it home in time for Christmas,” she said.
“If your train is cancelled or delayed, make sure you make a note of your ticket number and register a claim via Delay Repay, a nationwide scheme to compensate rail passengers for delays of 15 minutes or more.
“The Eurostar operates its own compensation scheme for delays of an hour or more which accepts claims from 24 hours after the disruption took place.”
