The post-pandemic summer surge in the number of people travelling from and in Belgium was brought with it a record number of incidents reported to Flemish road assistance company VAB's emergency call centre.
Since the start of the summer holidays (1 July until 17 August), VAB received an unprecedented number of calls for breakdown assistance and travel support both at home and abroad, according to a company press release calling in the "summer of all summers."
"In July it seemed that the whole of Flanders was travelling by car. Never before have so many calls been made to the call centre and never before have so many files been opened," the statement read.
Compared to 2019 (the last comparable year) the number of breakdown calls the company received from abroad increased by 20%. The increase was even greater compared to 2021 (+27%) and 2020 (+47%), though this is not surprising given that far fewer people travelled during these years due to the pandemic.
As was the case in previous years, VAB had to carry out most interventions in Belgium's southern neighbours. Almost half of interventions abroad took place in France; in second place is the Netherlands. The VAB also noted that it carried out twice as many interventions in Portugal as in 2019, illustrating the country's growing popularity among Flemish holidaymakers.
More help needed per case
The number of files opened as a result of people requiring road assistance also increased by 15% since 2019. This shows that more calls or interventions were needed per case.
"This can be explained by the fact that all kinds of external factors made the work of the VAB roadside assistance or roadside assistance more difficult, such as a shortage of spare parts and local breakdown services, but also of a shortage of taxis, free hotel rooms, train and airline tickets and so on," the statement read.
As a result of this increase in demand, VAB ordered extra replacement vehicles and decided to employ ten extra road assistance officers.
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Almost 30% of breakdown cases this summer were related to tyre failure (up from 25% in 2019). The absolute number of tyre breakdown cases increased by 45%. There were also more engine malfunctions (+34%), although the number of accidents decreased (-5%).
"This may be because people were in traffic jams more often, so the chance of a serious accident decreased."
