The chief executive of the Port of Dover has warned of a potential “tough start” to next summer’s peak travel period due to the introduction of the EU’s new border control system.
The Entry/Exit System is due to be introduced at the end of May, with those entering from non-EU countries required to register fingerprints and a photo of their passport details.
Doug Bannister told the BBC the EES system could result in a ten-minute registration process for each car carrying four people, although it is currently unclear if the process could be accelerated through the use of technology.
He said Dover was the place in the UK “where this really bites” as the registration will need to take place under the supervision of French border police before embarkation.
He told the BBC: “We’ve heard one of the solutions is an iPad-type thing, [with handles] for fingerprints, and the camera takes facial recognition alongside passport details. But we haven’t seen it. So we don’t know for certain.
“You can imagine trying to hand that around a car. And in particular if you’ve got children in the back, how do you get them to do it properly? Maybe somebody’s asleep in the back, you need to wake them up.”
Calling for the UK government to press the EU and France for a workable process, he warned that any delays could mean ” more congestion events than we have had this year”.
The port’s busiest time of year, mid-July to the first weekend in September, saw more than 1.7 million passengers handled – more than half the full-year total for 2021.
More than 400,000 cars passed through the port this summer, compared with a little over 336,000 in 2021.
Photo: Simon Ward Photography/Shutterstock.com