Massive holiday traffic exodus hits roads in Spain today as DGT mounts first Operation Salida of summer

The first weekend of July has arrived and with it starts Spain's first major holiday traffic operation of the summer, with hundreds of thousands of vehicles taking to the roads in search of their final destinations. The national Directorate-General of Traffic (DGT) expects more vehicle movements compared to last year - an increase of 2.5% in the Andalucía region, with 221,600 journeys forecast just for Malaga province over this first weekend.

Extreme caution will be essential to avoid road accidents and the traffic management centres based in Malaga and Seville will be monitoring the situation 24 hours a day. In addition to the more than 60 officers and specialised technical staff, there will be two helicopters and several drones covering the main routes and focusing on those points where incidents are likely to occur.

As usual, the DGT will update information about the busiest points and peak traffic times, due to the expected large accumulation of vehicles in certain areas. Malaga is one of the most saturated provinces in terms of traffic, seeing as it receives a large influx of tourists. These will be the busiest hours over this weekend (4-6 July):

On the A-357, A-45, A-7, A-92, A-92M, AP-46, AP-7 and MA-20 roads:

- Friday, 4 July, from 3pm to 10pm

- Saturday, 5 July, from 10am to 3pm and from 5pm to 10pm

- Sunday, 6 July, from 11am to 3pm and from 5pm to 10pm

These are likely to be the busiest spots: the area of Alto de Las Pedrizas on the A-45 motorway (between kilometres 115.000-118.00); another two on the A-7 motorway: one in San Pedro Alcántara (at kilometre points 1053.000-1050.00) and the other in Fuengirola (1015.000-1013.00); and on the MA-20 in the city of Malaga, the section between kilometres 0 and 12.6.

The DGT has also listed roads where construction is taking place, which can complicate traffic. Most of these roadworks concern tunnels on the A-7 motorway.

- In Marbella, San Pedro Alcántara tunnel (1054,000-1055,00)

- In Malaga city, Churriana tunnel (999.000-997.00); San José tunnel (983.600-982.70); Cerrado Calderón tunnel (980.300-979.500)

- In Vélez-Málaga, Lagos tunnel (944,600-943,700)

- In Torrox, Tablazo tunnel (939.200-938.60) and Torrox tunnel (937.500-935.900)

- In Nerja, Frigiliana tunnel (933.000-932.500) and Capistrano tunnel (931.600-930.200)

- On the AP-7, in Torremolinos (998.000-996.000) and in Marbella, in two sections: 1043.000-1047.300 and 1048.900-1049.50

- On the A-397, Parauta - Benahavís (13,000 - 38,300)

- On the A-45, in Casabermeja (128,600 - 127,000)

The DGT has also listed alternative routes:

- To get from the north of Malaga province to the east, take the A-45 to the exit of the A-356 road (called 'de arco'), heading towards La Viñuela - Vélez-Málaga and from there towards Torre del Mar, Algarrobo, Torrox and Nerja.

- To get from Seville to the west of the province, take the A-374 towards Ronda and then the A-397 to San Pedro Alcántara.

- To get from Seville to Malaga, take the A-92 to the Sierra de Yeguas exit, from there to Campillos on the A-365 and from Campillos to Malaga on the A-357.