A bank holiday Monday rewires the rhythm of the road, the make-up of the traffic, and the behaviour of the people inside the cars. Across the long weekend, our ANPR network captured exactly how that shift plays out at motorway service areas. The picture is a clear one for any brand thinking about when, where, and to whom they advertise.
616k
Vehicle visits on bank holiday Friday.
+8.8%
Overall lift on Friday and Saturday.
+9%
Increase in dwell time on bank holiday Monday.
The getaway begins on Friday
Bank Holiday momentum started strong with a busy Friday getaway: we saw 616,000 vehicles visit our MSA network, up 10.9% on the Friday a week earlier. Saturday continued the pattern, with 453,000 visits -a 6.2% uplift – as leisure traffic kept building.
By Sunday, the audience was already at its destination. Visits dipped to 414,000 as the typical end-of-weekend return journey was deferred by an extra non-working day.
The Monday that doesn't behave like a Monday
A typical Monday at an MSA is shaped by work. Light commercial vans, HGVs, fleet vehicles and commuters dominate the mix. On bank holiday Monday, that flips entirely.
Cars accounted for 82% of all vehicles on the road, with car share rising sharply versus the previous Monday, a swing of roughly 22 percentage points in favour of leisure traffic. HCV share fell by around 9 points and LCV share by around 10. In practical terms, the working Monday audience was replaced almost wholesale by a leisure one.
Later peaks, longer stops
The bank holiday audience also moves on a different clock. Friday and Monday both peaked at 13:00, an hour later than the typical Friday norm of 12:00 and two hours later than the typical Monday norm of 11:00. Saturday held to its usual 11:00 peak.
That later peak indicates a leisure traveller who has time to stop, browse, and spend.
The dwell data backs this up. Average car dwell on bank holiday Friday was 22 minutes 24 seconds, up from 21 minutes the previous Friday. On bank holiday Monday it reached 22’ 18”, against 20’ 36” the week before, which equates to a 9% uplift. Visits at 13:00 on the Monday alone were up 46% on the previous Monday, and the homeward flow between 17:00 and 19:00 was up 32%.
In other words: more cars, arriving later, staying longer, and travelling for leisure rather than work.
A predictable, measurable shift in audience
What's most valuable about the early May data isn't any single figure. It's the consistency of the pattern. Friday and Saturday lift on volume, Sunday softens. Monday holds its volume but transforms its make-up: fewer working vehicles, dramatically more cars, later arrivals, longer dwell. Bank holidays are a disruption to the data, but they're also a recurring, plannable feature of it.
When the country takes a long weekend, it doesn't just travel more, it travels differently, and it stops differently. Our data lets brands see that audience build, peak, and unwind in real time, and plan media around the moments that matter most.
