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As the Pride of Kent made its way to the port of Calais, it was making history.
The first ferry to cross the English Channel in 2021; the first to transport trucks traveling under the umbrella of new rules and regulations.
What happened next was exactly as you had predicted.
Several ferries made the crossing throughout the day.
The roads did not stop; tensions did not erupt at customs.
Instead, 36 trucks left the ship and most went directly to the public highway.
Only three were asked to stop for further checks.
So the Brexit years did not start with chaos and cacophony, but exactly the kind of fluid process that we have become accustomed to in recent decades.
But maybe we should be careful not to read too much on this first morning.
For starters, freight traffic is remarkably light at the moment, and even some early mishaps wouldn’t be close enough to cause noticeable traffic problems.
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New Years Day is, unsurprisingly, always pretty quiet.
This year, it is even quieter than usual on the roads of Calais.
It’s pretty clear that many carriers made the decision to reduce the number of trips they made during the first week or two of 2021, fearing disruptions.
UK warehouses also attest to the fact that many companies storage of goods in December.
We shouldn’t expect cargo deliveries to return to normal for a week or so.
So will he manage?
Calais has new staff, new infrastructure, and a new atmosphere – friction has been added to the system, but much is being done to try to mitigate it.
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In Dover, money has been spent on traffic management systems and their own version of new customs controls.
But they are different approaches, with their own different models.
However, it is the contrasting reaction to those regulatory changes that will matter.
While British customs will pass the bulk of freight traffic during the first six months, the European Union is likely to avoid such a light approach.
The French have focused on trying to perfect a system of controls that allows trucks to leave the port directly if their paperwork is in order.
In Dover, the British have devised a system that has a similar goal to prevent a vehicle from getting on the ship if it does not have the correct clearance or, at this time, a negative COVID test.
The trucks arrived in Calais from the UK and headed straight for the road.
The bottom line is that, at first glance, delays, and thus traffic jams, still seem much more likely to occur in Kent than in Calais.
That is the question now before us: about when newly installed friction it will begin to make itself felt, how it will manifest itself and whether it will show deep problems or just short term problems that are easily remedied.
By the time the Pride of Kent docked in Calais, another ship had already left port and was heading in the other direction.
More did so throughout the day, watched over by dog walkers and joggers who roamed the shoreline.
By then, hundreds of trucks had already crossed the Channel, in both directions, thanks to nighttime Eurostar ferries.
The first driver to enter France was a 62-year-old Romanian, who said he was pleased to be making history.
At the moment, the specter of the cross channel disruption is the dog that has not barked. Not yet, anyway.
