Traffic over the Easter holiday period is likely to peak on Thursday, according to the AA, with motoring organisations forecasting a busier getaway than last year. The AA expects more than 11 million drivers to take a trip over the bank holiday weekend, with the greatest number travelling on 24 March.
The busiest roads are likely to be the routes to the south-west – the M4, M5 and A303 – with the M1, M6 and M25 also set to be congested. Easter Sunday, however, is predicted to be one of the quietest days of the year. Roadworks on 450 miles of major routes will be finished or temporarily lifted by Highways England for the holiday weekend.
Rail engineering works will affect relatively few services, with Network Rail promising that 95% of the railway will operate as normal. But passengers have been advised to check for alterations to their journey, as 450 individual projects to upgrade the network are planned.
There will be slight disruption on parts of the West Coast, East Coast and Great Western mainlines. Manchester Victoria station will be closed for nine days from Good Friday. No Gatwick trains will operate from London Victoria due to major work in Battersea, diverting instead to London Bridge.
The Gatwick Express disruption comes as the Sussex airport anticipates its busiest Easter ever, with 580,000 passengers flying through it over the long weekend, the numbers peaking on Easter Sunday. British Airways, the largest carrier at Heathrow, says Thursday will be its busiest day of the three weeks around Easter, when it will fly 2.4 million passengers.
Transport for London expects to be running most tube services normally from Good Friday, after an RMT strike from Wednesday night that will close the Piccadilly line and increase congestion on the rest of the underground on Thursday.
Coach company National Express is adding 13,000 seats to meet demand over the holidays.
