The great Christmas getaway continues on Saturday as millions of people travel across the UK to be with friends and family for the festive season.
But strikes mean journeys home could be severely hampered by industrial action on the roads, railways and at airports, as Britain’s transport network reaches breaking point.
What is the situation on the railways?
Rail passengers have been urged to travel only if “absolutely necessary” as thousands of members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union at Network Rail will walk out from 6pm on Christmas Eve until 6am on 27 December.
The union said the industrial action would mostly affect planned engineering works, but Network Rail has confirmed trains will stop running at about 3pm on Christmas Eve.
A number of train operators have warned passengers to travel only if “absolutely necessary”, as some routes will not operate at all, and others will have a limited service.
An overtime ban – industrial action short of a strike – could further disrupt services when they are in high demand on Saturday afternoon. It has already wreaked havoc with timetables on some lines on non-strike days, with about 4,000 trains cancelled daily.
The limited train services will almost certainly have a knock-on impact on the number of drivers. An RAC survey indicated that nearly half of people affected by rail strikes this month planned to drive themselves or get a lift from someone else.
On Friday, the RMT accused the government of “going missing”, with no further talks planned since last week’s meeting with the rail minister Huw Merriman and industry leaders.
The Network Rail chief executive, Andrew Haines, said the union was causing “needless misery to its own members, to the railway and to the country’s economy”.
What about the roads?
The AA predicts that 16.5 million people will travel by road on Christmas Eve and have warned of lengthy delays and traffic jams on key motorways and A-roads.
The AA has identified the traffic hotspots as: the M25; the M5 between Bristol and Weston-super-Mare; the M6 around Birmingham; stretches of the M1 “smart” motorway from Luton northwards; the M62 and M60 in the north-west and the M4 and the M27.
The motoring group warned that the rail strikes mentioned above could “add to the getaway mayhem” by hampering confidence in public transport use.
The AA’s head of roads policy, Jack Cousens, said: “We are advising those heading out in their cars to be prepared for some congestion, especially on popular routes heading out of London.
“The rail strikes have convinced more people to travel by car this year, and while hundreds of miles of roadworks have been removed to ease the pain, it might not be enough to keep the queues away.”
The transport analytics company Inrix said it expected journey times by road to be about 14% longer compared with the same period last year.
Pressure on the roads ahead on Christmas could be further exacerbated by industrial action from National Highways employees.
Members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) who work as control room staff and traffic officers will continue their four-day strike on 24 and 25 December.
The PCS said the action “risks bringing the road network to a standstill” and road safety campaigners said they were “very concerned” about potential delays in setting warning signs on roads.
National Highways said no roads would be closed as a result of the industrial action, that it had “well-rehearsed resilience plans in place” and that strikes involved a small number of frontline staff.
What is happening at airports?
Border Force officials joined the wave of industrial action hitting the country on Friday and will strike every day for the rest of the year, except 27 December.
Travellers have been warned to expect delays amid fears long queues at passport control could lead to people being held on planes, disrupting subsequent departures.
Around 1,000 members of the PPCS union employed by the Home Office to operate passport booths are on strike at Heathrow, Birmingham, Cardiff, Gatwick, Glasgow and Manchester airports, as well as the port of Newhaven in East Sussex.
The Home Office has drafted in military personnel trained to check passports. Heathrow and Gatwick, the country’s two largest airports, said their immigration halls were operating as normal on Friday.