Chloé Lagadou 10:08 a.m., August 19, 2022

After a busy weekend of August 15 on the roads, Bison Futé's forecasts for Friday August 19 to Sunday August 21 are better.

However, traffic will be very difficult in the direction of returns for the whole of France this weekend.

How are these forecasts made?

Explanations from Thierry, Project Manager at Vinci Autoroutes. 

For this weekend, Bison Futé classified traffic "red" throughout France in the direction of returns.

Conversely, in the direction of departures, only the south-eastern quarter of the country will be affected by traffic deemed "very difficult" on Saturday and "difficult" on Sunday.

To establish these forecasts, agencies monitor traffic in real time every day, but also work on it throughout the year.

This is what Thierry, project manager at Vinci Autoroutes, explains to us. 

counting loops

"We make these forecasts thanks to tools, counting loops in particular", he explains at the microphone of Europe 1. "It is a device which is anchored in the roadway and inside. It makes it possible to count the number of vehicles passing over it. The data that we put into an algorithm manages to calculate for us, hour by hour and day by day, the expected traffic on the entire motorway network in terms of short-term forecasts".

>> Find Europe Matin in replay and podcast here

Patrollers who criss-cross the network all day

The teams therefore work night and day "in safety".

"We have patrollers crisscrossing the network all day, all night. It's due 24 hours a day to check that everything is going well, to check that the traffic is flowing properly and that there is no no obstacle on the way of the users. On the sectors which are extremely loaded, like the A7 for example, you have the equivalent of a patroller every 30 kilometers. It's a big job, "says t -he.