This weekend will see the second special operation for the movement of summer traffic on the roads, as the midpoint between the summer holiday starts and finishes.
The special operation will commence at 15:00 on Friday the 29th of July, finishing at midnight on Sunday. As a result, there will be increased traffic flowing from both inland areas towards the coast and mountains, and returning from the holiday areas back inland.
The main flow of traffic is expected to be on Friday afternoon heading from the cities to the coast, and on Sunday heading back to the inland areas, although both directions will be busy throughout, as this is one of the few weekends in the traffic calendar when traffic flows in both directions.
In total, there will be an estimated 6.5 million long-haul journeys on Spanish roads, considerably more than the 4.6 million of last year. Summer tourist traffic in Spain is also mixing with the major temporary migration of families back to African nations, thus making a particularly busy time period.
The major circulatory problems will be at the outputs of large cities and major roads of access to the coastal areas, both Friday evening and during Saturday morning. The roads that may be most affected are those of Madrid, Castilla la Mancha, Valencia, Murcia and Andalusia, as well as the A-6 and A-1 from Madrid.
According to the DGT, the roads by regions with the highest traffic intensity in this operation are:
In order to minimize disruption, the DGT will be operating a special campaign on the roads, which includes restricting the movement of dangerous goods, suspending all routine road works, creating special lanes to ease the flow of traffic, and having more than 10,000 Guardia Civil traffic officers and 13,000 support staff on the roads throughout. The DGT helicopters will be monitoring the roads from the air, including those equipped with the Pegasus radar equipment, and there will be intensified checks on the main contributing factors to road traffic collisions throughout the weekend, inappropriate and excessive speed, alcohol and drugs, and distractions.
Throughout the month of August, the DGT expect 43 million trips to be made on the roads.