Germany braces for the worst traffic weekend of the summer season

As summer holidays kick off in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, Germany's motorways are bound to be quite crowded today.

According to the the German automobile club ADAC, major traffic jams can be expected to pick up on Friday afternoon and continue through much of the weekend. 

ADAC warns that this will be one of the worst traffic jam weekends of the season: "Sunday is likely to be just as congested as Saturday," said a spokeswoman.

According to the ADAC, the motorways with the greatest risk of congestion are those coming and going from Berlin, Hamburg and Munich - especially at motorway construction sites where the lanes are reduced.

The ADAC also listed the A1 between Hamburg and Flensburg and the A6 between Mannheim and Nuremberg as a couple of the worst spots for traffic jams, and often in both directions.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, a closure affects the A1 near Leverkusen. From Friday evening until Monday morning on the 29th, an important connection between the Leverkusen and Leverkusen-West junctions will be closed in both directions.

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Traffic there will be diverted into the surroundings. Depending on drivers' destinations they may take the A59 or A3 instead.

Here are all of Germany's worst traffic zones according to ADAC:

• Motorway networks in the greater Hamburg and Munich areas

• Highways to and from the North Sea and Baltic Sea

• A1 Cologne – Dortmund – Bremen – Lübeck

• A3 Frankfurt – Nuremberg – Passau

• A4 Kirchheimer Dreieck – Bad Hersfeld – Erfurt – Dresden

• A5 Frankfurt – Karlsruhe – Basel

• A6 Mannheim – Heilbronn – Nuremberg

• A7 Hamburg – Flensburg

• A7 Hamburg – Hanover and Würzburg – Ulm – Füssen/Reutte

• A8 Stuttgart – Munich – Salzburg

• A9 Berlin – Nuremberg – Munich

• A10 Berliner Ring

• A11 Berlin – Junction Uckermark

• A19 Wittstock – Rostock junction

• A24 Berlin – Hamburg

• A81 Stuttgart – Singen

• A93 Inntaldreieck – Kufstein

• A96 Munich – Lindau

• A95/B2 Munich – Garmisch-Partenkirchen

• A99 Munich bypass

Can it be avoided?

The best way to avoid traffic is stay off the roads - or at least driving them during the busiest days.

To avoid the biggest traffic jams this week, holidaymakers should not leave on Friday, Saturday or Sunday if possible.

But if you must drive this weekend, you can avoid the worst of it by hitting the roads from the late afternoon, according to the ADAC.

Also, plan significantly more time for your route just in case.

You can also avoid adding to waiting times at the toll stations by purchasing the needed toll road passes in advance.

If you plan to travel by train, you should also be prepared for full trains. Most rail journeys take place at the beginning of the holidays, according to a spokeswoman, whereas the return traffic tends to be more scattered.

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The occupancy of your train can be checked online or on the DB app. The spokeswoman advises flexible travellers to use connections in the early morning and later evening. 

Patience may also be required at the airports. According to its own figures, Munich Airport expects more than six million passengers in the coming holiday weeks, 400,000 guests on the first weekend alone. If you plan to travel on a particularly busy day, like this weekend, you should give yourself a bit more time to check-in and pass security.

Why is the end of July peak traffic season?

The last weekend in July was also the most congested in the 2023 travel season.

As schools in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg break for summer, all of Germany's federal states are now on vacation.

Additionally, the ADAC spokesperson warned that a "second wave of travellers are hitting the roads from Berlin, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania."

On the other hand, in Bremen, Lower Saxony, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, classes will soon start again. So some residents there are beginning to make their ways home.

This year traffic is also affected by a large number of construction sites spread across the country. According to the ADAC, there are currently 1,230 construction sites on the motorways, slightly fewer than a year ago.