Was it so clearly noticeable to you too? The school holidays have started again! Or as the VID indicated: This weekend the VID expects a lot of traffic on…
Was it so clearly noticeable to you too? The school holidays have started again!
Or as the VID indicated:
This weekend the VID expects a lot of traffic on the roads due to a combination of holiday exodus, events and work.
Many people are already going out on Friday. They mainly have to deal with crowds around Schiphol and on roads towards our Eastern and Southern neighbors.
Well, that was clearly noticeable yesterday. A quick dinner in Rotterdam with colleagues. It took me around four hours from Grootegast to the Kop van Zuid in Rotterdam. The section in Rotterdam perhaps went the fastest.
Spread of school holidays
Vakantieregio’s – Wikipedia
At such a moment it seems as if the whole of the Netherlands is going on holiday. Yet it is only part. We have known the holiday spread since 1986. The holiday starts earlier or later in each region than in other regions. In this case it concerns the Central region that received a holiday. And then there are also schools from other regions that have decided to hold holidays at the same time as Central. The rest of the South region (July 15) and North (July 22) will have to wait a little longer before they can hit the road en masse to their holiday destination.
Holiday spreading is intended to prevent overloading of tourist places and the roads leading to them. It all sounds so nice, but does it help?
It can be difficult for parents with children at multiple schools. One child may attend a school in a different region than another child. This immediately means that their holidays are different. This year there may be two weeks in between, when one goes to school in the central region and the other in the north region.
Black Saturday
The term “Black Saturday” is used to describe the extreme congestion in European car traffic, due to a mass holiday exodus. These Black Saturdays usually fall in the last weekend of July or the first weekend of August, when many French people also have a holiday. So you cannot actually speak of one Black Saturday. Due to the spread of holidays, we have more Black Saturdays and a longer period of misery.
On
zwarte-zaterdag.nl
you can read the latest news and tips about Black Saturday and how to avoid Black Saturday.
Consequences for business
The holiday spread also seems to be a solution for the business community. You could say that this allows the company to continue running while people go on holiday. At least there is someone to keep things running.
But that is also just an appearance. My experience is that spreading holidays means that less happens over a longer period. With a bit of bad luck, the period of reduced activity will start at the end of May and the company will not be back at full speed until September. Decisions are often carried over the holiday period.
And for some companies or organizations, no changes can even be made during the holiday period. They are afraid that this will lead to disruptions when everyone wants to use their services again. An example: A school does not want to make any changes during the holiday period, because the IT systems must function properly when students report for the first day of school. Since the IT systems are then under maximum load, it is safer to make changes later in the school year.
Does it make sense to spread the holidays?
I have no idea. The period in which people go on holiday should be staggered, so that the crowds on the road are distributed. Yet we all still seem to choose the same period for vacation, taking into account when all family members can get vacation. We also still choose the same day or time to leave, which means we end up in traffic jams en masse during one of the infamous Black Saturdays.
Experiment
In that respect, perhaps after twenty years it might be time for a new experiment: We give all schools holidays at the same time again. In this we would follow the example of Belgium. The Belgian school holidays run from July 1 to August 31 (in 2018). It is then clear to everyone when they are free. Parents and other holidaymakers could then choose when they go on holiday within that period, without this being determined in advance by the holiday schedule. Who knows, maybe we will have less traffic misery.
