Queues at Dover again...despite all French staff being there

[cakeorwine]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11058351/What-queues-like-Dover-Holidaymakers-hit-two-hour-queues-warned-weekend-worse.html

How can this be? It was all down to the French not having enough staff apparently. At least that was the excuse last week.

I suppose it could be because it's a busy time of year. Which it is.

And it's going to get worse this weekend.

6 years they had to plan for this. 6 years.

"Due to Britain now being a 'third country', Paris insists travellers must have their passports stamped with dates when entering and leaving the EU's Schengen area, which France is a member of.
This is to ensure Britons don't stay more than 90 days within a 180 day period without a visa, which is required post-Brexit for longer visits.
Border guards have also been ordered to ask British holidaymakers whether they have a return ticket, have enough money for their stay and have booked accommodation.
It means it can take an extra 90 seconds longer to carry out passport checks on Continent-bound cars."

I don't think each passenger is being asked about their journey. But it is taking longer and it's good to see the Mail mention that.

I wonder what excuse is going to be this weekend's one?

Yawn..... 😵

Yawn all you want. It's delays at our ports which are important.

And the excuse they used last week isn't true now - so what excuse will they use this weekend?

I wish that the 48% and lorries could be prioritised, sadly not a possibility.

I despise the current government (and the last one and the one before that, and probably the next one too) but what do you think they should do? This is what the majority of the British people voted for, regardless of how slim a majority. They couldn't expect to leave Europe and still be in it when convenient. The Tories are always banging on about "protecting our borders" - did anyone think the EU wouldn't protect theirs? The days of walking through with barely any interest in your passport are gone. Unless you hold an EU passport.

Plan

Look at Dover properly.
Maybe another port could be opened up
Is there a way they can make it more efficient to get through?
Where do the lorries go? Still queue on the motorway?

They have had 6 years to do something - and it was predictable that increased checks, even basic checks, will take longer. Longer checks will lead to queues.

It's all just queueing theory - a branch of mathematics (that is fairly simple).

If there are 10 french immigration posts and it takes 2 mins to process each vehicle, then the output is a constant 300/hour. If vehicles (temporarily) arrive at 350/hour then the queue will grow by 50 vehicles per hour and after 6 hours there will be a queue of 300 vehicles and the the vehicle at the back of this queue will wait an hour before being served. For the next 6 hours, if vehicles arrive at 300/hour then the queue will stay the same size, as will the wait. If vehicles then arrive at 275/hour then the queue reduces by 25 each hour, and the queue will disappear after 12 hours.

In reference to Dover, the rate of vehicle arrivals is almost impossible to control (although it will have a maximum related to ferry capacity), so to provide a decent service the solution is to increase the output. This can only be done by a) reducing processing times (which seems unlikely to happen) or b) increase the number of immigration posts. It is the same thing as happens at supermarket checkouts - if a queue starts to build they open another checkout.

The biggest problem occurs when you have 10 out of 10 checkouts/immigration posts working so you can't open another, or you have 8 out of 10 working and no staff to open any more.

It seems to me that the immigration processing times have been known for years, and the ferry capacity is known, so if 10 checkouts is not enough, this is 100% the Port of Dover's fault, and if only 8 of 10 are open, this is 100% French Immigration's fault.

Open up another port 😂love it. Afterall, they are really inconveniently placed aren't they?

I was traveling to Europe on 10.06 and the queues were already quite bad. We were waiting for more that 3 hours for someone at the booth just glance at our passport and wave us through. No waiting whatsoever on return to UK.

The English and Welsh people voted for BREXIT, now you have it. What did you all expect?

The French even requested a while ago for the government to create new posts so they could process more people concurrently,
but nope government did nothing as per usual

I went through Dover on the 8am ferry yesterday . Was through in 45 mins. Was there in September last year and drove straight on. Hardly anyone was travelling back then.
There are queues for several reasons. Most obvious one is Brexit and we all need checked..🙄.
Also just after we left the EU, Hardly any one was travelling due. Now restrictions are lifted, everyone is travelling as it's school holidays.

That's "Taking Back Control" in action. What did you expect otherwise? This is how it is now.

YABU for reading and quoting anything the Daily Mail writes.

I find it far more convenient and easier to travel down to Plymouth and sail into Roscoff with Brittany ferries. Far less queing and a nice cabin and meal and sail over night so don't lose a day of holiday.

My own feeling is that eventually the UK are going to have to rejoin.

I feel sorry for everyone who voted in the dark. They are not to blame for this.

... but then, we have issues with queuing at Dover (and airports) every summer!

We just drove from London to Calais on Wednesday (by ferry). It took exactly 2 hours and there were no delays at all. It was very quick and easy. Maybe we were just lucky, but I didn't notice any delays. It was super efficient in Dover.🤷‍♀️

I mean it took us exactly 2 hours from North London to Dover P&O Ferry ⛴ door-to-door. No queues at all. Maybe people shouldn't go on a weekend. We drove on Wednesday 27th July. It was very easy and I wish I hadn't spent money on my 12-year-old's PCR, as no one asked for it.

We travelled through the Chunnel at May half term. Took an early train like we usually would pre-Brexit. The queue was awful. French border control looking at each passport and slowly checking each passenger . We missed our train due to the queue even though we arrived on time, and got bumped to a later train. That never happened before Brexit. And our planned train was 7.30am so presumably the whole day was bad.

I think you have to realise the French have an axe to grind - this is a cheap and easy way to punish the Brits for leaving the EU. They have no interest in ensuring we don’t suffer delays. So I’m not surprised they are not rushing to help make queues work optimally with the right number of immigration desks open.

I live in Dover and am on a night shift 8 miles away, it can take me hours to get home in the mornings.. it’s infuriating! Traffic back to back and all roads blocked.

The port of Dover requested the 33M funding for this in 2020. The UK government gave them 33K.

Article from 2020 - www.chronicle.gi/port-of-dover-boss-says-more-funding-needed-to-prevent-increased-hold-ups/

Research by the LSE showed that the English who live in Wales caused the Welsh Brexit result

Eurotunnel fab 17th july even put us on an earlier one. Anyone know what it’s like coming back to England or are the queues just for leaving ?

What a load of rubbish. They are checking because they have to stamp passports and check they're still valid.

I came back yesterday and the U.K. passport control at Calais was really slow. Asking loads of questions about where we'd been etc.

This is our fault. No one else's

Queues are ok coming back, it’s ok getting out of Dover just getting in is a huge problem.