Dover Ferry Queues

loftie said:
Problem with comparing them as far as I can tell is you don't know the rate at which they're clearing people
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think it's a self-fulfilling prophesy too - people anticipate a brexit problem so they turn up earlier .. one of the proposals for lorries is to make sure they don't turn up too early - JIT.

Actual throughput of cars in peak weekends pre-brexit doesn't seem to have been published to compare apples & apples, but 22Q2 cars only 300K versus 500K 19Q2 though

Port Of Dover | Official Website Of The Dover Harbour Board

The UK’s busiest international ferry port – a vital connection for the movement of people and the exchange of trade.
www.doverport.co.uk www.doverport.co.uk

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[
I knew someone would say that ..
there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven't
]
 
Azza said:
I live just around the corner from the port and my partner works there, so I have a deep and knowledgable understanding of how things operate and on the ground this has been the worst summer since 'B' word happened. The sheer amount of traffic compared last year and the year before is nothing compared to how it's been this summer. She says and I quote "I've never seen so many vehicles in my life!".
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So it never this bad before the b word then?

redeye said:
Would be nice if someone from the Government did their job. Which is to get Eurotunnel, Port of Dover and French customs / home office around a table and figure out the best way forward. For me it's relatively simple - give Eurotunnel / Dover the what ever million to build additional customs facilities / lanes that they asked for - it is as clear as day both companies need (Dover has what 3-4 lanes? Eurotunnel at Folkstone has 2-3 yet at Calais they have about 10). If you need longer to check passports (which they do now) but you've not put in place any extra facilities then you're going to get longer waits, and compounded if there are staff shortages for any reason.
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Funnily enough we (the country) used to own a big share of Eurotunnel until just after 2010 when it was sold to the lowest bidder.
 
redeye said:
Would be nice if someone from the Government did their job. Which is to get Eurotunnel, Port of Dover and French customs / home office around a table and figure out the best way forward. For me it's relatively simple - give Eurotunnel / Dover the what ever million to build additional customs facilities / lanes that they asked for - it is as clear as day both companies need (Dover has what 3-4 lanes? Eurotunnel at Folkstone has 2-3 yet at Calais they have about 10). If you need longer to check passports (which they do now) but you've not put in place any extra facilities then you're going to get longer waits, and compounded if there are staff shortages for any reason.

If French custom officials do travel back and forth on Eurotunnel and they were delayed, then that doesn't suprise me at all. Eurotunnels service levels have dropped through the floor the last 3-4 years with a noticeable increase of broken down trains and schedule delays. The trains are looking old (they are), roads, layouts at Folkstone just aren't up to scratch anymore.

I would also like to know why UK Customs continually short staff customs in Eurotunnel at Calais. The last 3 years at peak times it's a joke and that's caused hours and hours of delays. I've not seen that make the news much but it happens during the summer, Easter and Christmas.

Half of this no matter what people say is because of B but there are other issues too.
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Eurotunnel (Folkestone side) has 6 potential UK customs lanes and 10 French. We added 4 additional French lanes post Brexit, the whole capacity as far as I know has never been utilised. There is a complete overhaul of capacity for Freight at the moment to assist there and make that side of traffic smoother. There is money being spent, which is against what the company really wants to do as it spent 2 years having passenger numbers so low, that if it wasn't for continual freight traffic the business would probably be collapsing.

As regards to train breakdowns, it isn't noticeably higher than average over the past few years. The media never differentiates loco breakdowns between Eurotunnel, Eurostar and outside freight. Even when it comes to catenery issues people are unaware that on many occasions HGV's dont tie down their tarpaulins correctly and they whip up and wrap round catenery and pull it down while in transit.

What would really help is if there was some major infrastructure changes around Folkestone/Dover to mitigate these absolutely terrible days. Ditch operation stack and come up with a better plan than closing the M20.
 
Tony Edwards said:
So it never this bad before the b word then?
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Yes it has been worse. People seem to forget when the French go on strike and throw burning tyres onto the tracks/surrounding roads. Or the migrant crisis when the tunnel was being pretty much invaded on a daily basis for a good while. Or heavy weather cancels ferries and hours of delays begin.
 
dLockers said:
Do they even use Stack anymore? Operation Brock was intended to replace it.
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Brock is the use one of one the northbound lanes to allow southbound cars (non HGV's) to still transit south, this requires the moving of barriers in the central reservation. Stack is when all hell breaks loose and they literally need to stack HGV's in Lanes 1/3 and will still be used if Brock has been stood down. You cannot use Brock without prior planning and application due to the barriers. So if something sudden happens, Stack is put into place as there is no time to set up Brock.
 
Jester* said:
What would really help is if there was some major infrastructure changes around Folkestone/Dover to mitigate these absolutely terrible days. Ditch operation stack and come up with a better plan than closing the M20.
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I've never understood the logic of, if traffic is heavy, closing a 3 lane motorway and channelling all the traffic onto a single lane A road.

The alternative of stacking the lorries at Manston wasn't much better. They had to re-surface a significant portion of the A roads after that disaster.
 
The Government have had more than enough warnings that it doesn't work. Someone needs to pull a finger out, but they won't.
 
Yea it is fine coming into the tunnel. Busy but no queuing on the surrounding roads or M20.

If anyone is interested, Thursday - Sunday of last week (during the well reported delays) the tunnel processed 37,000 tourist vehicles. Not counting freight, so the total number is probably something well over 40,000 over 4 days.
 
really need to know how that 37000 compares with previous & pre-brexit hoilday periods, is the thoughput/capacity more or less.
 
It wasn't a record breaking weekend. But it was the highest traffic levels post COVID & Brexit.

Now what we also need to see is an extremely high traffic weekend, with no external factors affecting traffic. Manning issues, big delays due to crashes on the M20. At the moment all traffic is passing through both sets of customs well, no traffic issues coming down the M20 and all trains are running on time. It is also a high traffic weekend. Whereas throughout the week the media were stirring it up saying it was going to be terrible again.
 
Believe I saw it on reddit, a photo of Private Eye taking the **** out of the The DM and it's Brexit comments. Interestingly they mentioned The DM had the times for clearing people through. They had pre-brexit 25-30 seconds, post brexit 70 - 120 seconds.
Naturally, take with some salt as the source is The DM, but I'd take it as a rough guide.
Edit: found it
kvRPENh.jpg
 
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