The Department for Transport’s poll, which surveyed 1,584 individuals aged 16 and above, highlighted concerns primarily about increased queuing and document checks under the new EES.
According to the results of the survey, Awareness of the EES amongst the respondents to NTAS wave 10 was generally low, with 69% hearing about this for the first time in the NTAS survey, and 4% saying that they had heard of it and knew a lot about it.
All respondents were asked if the EES would make them more or less likely to travel to Europe in the next 2 years, compared to now. Respondents who said that they would travel to Europe the same, or less, after the introduction of EES, were presented options about what, if anything, could concern them about the system.
The majority of these respondents, 67%, said they were concerned about more queuing or document checking when departing from the UK. Slightly fewer (59%) were concerned about the amount of time or effort needed to complete the initial registration for travel into Europe.
Just less than a third (31%) were concerned about the collection of fingerprints, and fewer (26%) concerned about the collection of facial photographs. A minority (15%) were not concerned about any of the options presented.
All respondents were further asked what the likelihood was of them travelling internationally for leisure in the next 12 months. The majority (70%) of respondents said that it was likely that they would make such a trip, however this was related to whether they had made a trip in the last 12 months. Of those who said they were very unlikely to make an international trip for leisure in the next 12 months, 92% said they had travelled zero times in the last 12 months. By comparison, of those who said that it was very likely they would make such a trip in the next 12 months, 38% had made three or more trips in the previous 12 months. 49 percent said they could not afford a trip abroad and 40 percent said they prefer travelling in the UK.
