Plan your trip in advance!
The French highway companies predict traffic jams for predefined highway (autoroutes) sections on the basis of observed traffic density in the past, existing road works and scheduled holiday periods in Europe. You can choose your specific travel day and get a forecast for traffic density and can thus judge at which hour of the day you can best avoid bottlenecks and heavy congestion.
Of course, exreme weather conditions and accidents cannot be foreseen weeks ahead. Nevertheless, we have made the experience that the French motorway congestion forecasts work astonishingly well and they have saved us from a couple of nasty traffic jams in the past.
Enter below when you plan to start your trip, go, then zoom with your mouse wheel into the map of France. Clicking into the car circles lets you choose the direction: First choice is South, below North. Example: A7 between Lyon and Southern Rhone valley = Vienne-Orange. The 24 hour pictogram shows when to best pass this section. ⇒ mobile version