James Warren
SPAIN’S Transport agency DGT has not issued travel predictions for the annual ‘summer exodus’ for the first time in history.
Every year, as the summer season starts, large numbers of tourists and locals take to the roads to go on their summer holidays.
To coincide with this, the Ministry of Transport reveals its annual plans for the season, along with predictions of how many cars will take to the roads between June and September.
These predictions are used by the DGT to assess their summer operations.
However this year, the COVID-19 pandemic has blown all predictions out of the water as the country adapts to its ‘new normal’ following months of COVID-19 lockdown.
Instead, the Ministry has elected to assess the movements in July and begin predictions in August.
During the summer season 2019, 91 million trips were taken, many including hire cars or Spaniards travelling to their second residencies.
Last weekend, 4.4 million trips were recorded, giving some indication that things are slowly returning to normal now travel restrictions have been lifted.
The Interior Ministry explains that due to the limit of foreign tourists arriving into Spain, it will be impossible to measure figures until things return to ‘normal’.
They also expect that trips within Spain will be shorter, and mostly long awaited trips to visit family and friends.
The DGT and the Guardia Civil Trafico haven’t been resting on their laurels though, as they announce their plans for the month of July before the official figures are released.
As is the norm, alcohol and speed will be the focus of the roadside patrols.
A total of 764 speed cameras, 548 mobile speed radars, 12 helicopters, 216 seatbelt and mobile phone cameras, 11 drones and 15 undercover cars have been allocated so far.
