JEDDAH: The plans put in place by the General Directorate of Passports and the King Fahd Causeway Authority (KFCA) have failed to reduce crowding at the causeway, with some passengers complaining that they were forced to wait for up to four hours for clearance.

According to local media, thousands of passengers are flocking to the causeway with the beginning of the school vacation, leading to congestion on the link to Bahrain, which organizes annual festivals this time of the year.

Cars arrived at the causeway early Saturday morning to avoid congestion, but their number was so large that it defeated the purpose of sailing through quickly and smoothly, the report said. Some passengers were seen waiting nearby and some simply sitting in restaurants waiting for the rush to clear.

The new expansion projects by KFCA lately, like increasing the number of cabins to absorb the large number of passengers, is not helping either due to the huge number of travelers during this holiday.

The KFCA has deployed all its employees to facilitate the movement of passengers during this time, which is considered the most active season of the year.

Some passengers told local media that the movement of vehicles was restricted because of the long waiting period. They said long queues of vehicles were seen from the Saudi Customs checkpoint to the Bahraini Customs.

The Passport Department was quoted as saying that it has increased the number of tracks and the number of workforce and personnel for completing the travel procedures, but all such measures collapsed in the face of the huge numbers of passengers.

Meanwhile, the Salwa border crossing linking Saudi Arabia with Qatar is also witnessing crowding, but the situation over there is better than the causeway.