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Crowd Management at Liverpool Lime Street: how could it be managed better in future?

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73001

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One thing that might have worked better was the use of rail replacement buses. The vast majority were parked up until it became really obvious that the trains wouldn't cope.

Sending a small number as far as Huyton, St Helens or Wigan might have allowed the situation to be controlled better. Merseyrail did it earlier on in the evening to help clear Central.
 
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Ianigsy

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It’s far from unlikely that Liverpool will win another trophy next season, so the thinking needs to start now. The CLC stoppers could be turned at Hunts Cross for Merseyrail forwards to the city centre, which might create a path for an extra from the Runcorn direction.

Use the curve platform at Earlestown to run a queue buster calling at St Helen's Junction and Huyton only and running back empty.

Split the Birmingham service to have a set doing Liverpool South Parkway and the suburban stations to Lime Street and another fast to Runcorn then all points south.
 

Class83

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Separate queues outside for various destinations would have been more use, then let an appropriate number of people from each queue in when a train is ready.

E.g. Lord Nelson Street for Wigan and Manchester Victoria
Taxi Rank/Car Park for London and Birmingham (not stopping at South Parkway, shuttle bus from LSP-Runcorn for anyone actually trying to make that journey)
Ramp at front for Manchester via Warrington
 

Starmill

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One option would be to remove the taxi rank and fence on platform 10, and relocate the service access at the far end of platform 10 (although I don't know what's down there and how much it could cost to start messing about with it...). This would then need a flat floor installing and the road access to the highway replaced with new exterior doors. This would leave a large bare space that could be used to set up queuing systems that are far higher in capacity.

Think of the complaints anything like this would generate in addition to the obvious large cost of completely reconfiguring this part of the station. An alternative and much smaller provision for taxis would need to be found elsewhere, but there is very limited space. Also what would the space be used for when it's not required to be a queueing system? It would be a bare concrete floor without much else. The station is well short of public toilets so this space could have some new permanent ones installed here. The main facilities outside Wetherspoons' entrance were gross the last time I was there.
 

Bevan Price

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Separate queues outside for various destinations would have been more use, then let an appropriate number of people from each queue in when a train is ready.

E.g. Lord Nelson Street for Wigan and Manchester Victoria
Taxi Rank/Car Park for London and Birmingham (not stopping at South Parkway, shuttle bus from LSP-Runcorn for anyone actually trying to make that journey)
Ramp at front for Manchester via Warrington
I forget which event it was, several years ago, but then Lime St. did have destination-segregated queues, separated by temporary barriers, all by the Skelhorne Street entance, and whilst not rapid, station access and boarding trains proceedly steadily with no obvious problems. It seems they have forgotten the lessons from earlier events.
 

jamesst

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It’s far from unlikely that Liverpool will win another trophy next season, so the thinking needs to start now. The CLC stoppers could be turned at Hunts Cross for Merseyrail forwards to the city centre, which might create a path for an extra from the Runcorn direction.

Use the curve platform at Earlestown to run a queue buster calling at St Helen's Junction and Huyton only and running back empty.

Split the Birmingham service to have a set doing Liverpool South Parkway and the suburban stations to Lime Street and another fast to Runcorn then all points south.
You're throwing a lot of extra passengers onto Merseyrail in that plan, which was operating over capacity itself. Not a good idea
 

Lewisham2221

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I forget which event it was, several years ago, but then Lime St. did have destination-segregated queues, separated by temporary barriers, all by the Skelhorne Street entance, and whilst not rapid, station access and boarding trains proceedly steadily with no obvious problems. It seems they have forgotten the lessons from earlier events.
Agree that segregating the queues by destination would seem to be an absolute nightmare brainer. Wonder why it wasn't done this time? Perhaps unfamiliarity with handling such large events?
 

Caaardiff

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Separate queues outside for various destinations would have been more use, then let an appropriate number of people from each queue in when a train is ready.

E.g. Lord Nelson Street for Wigan and Manchester Victoria
Taxi Rank/Car Park for London and Birmingham (not stopping at South Parkway, shuttle bus from LSP-Runcorn for anyone actually trying to make that journey)
Ramp at front for Manchester via Warrington

Agree that segregating the queues by destination would seem to be an absolute nightmare brainer. Wonder why it wasn't done this time? Perhaps unfamiliarity with handling such large events?


This is how it's done in Cardiff with the Principality Stadium for Rugby Internationals and concerts. Capacity of around 75,000 with the stadium just across from the road from Cardiff Central, where kick out time means thousands heading towards Cardiff Central in one go. The area in front of Cardiff Central is setup with queues by destination/route and queues managed to let people onto platforms safely as trains arrive.
 

D9006

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One thing that might have worked better was the use of rail replacement buses. The vast majority were parked up until it became really obvious that the trains wouldn't cope. Sending a small number as far as Huyton, St Helens or Wigan might have allowed the situation to be controlled better. Merseyrail did it earlier on in the evening to help clear Central.
If there were thousands waiting, a 66 seater double-decker is not really going to make inroads.
 
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73001

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If there were thousands waiting, a 66 seater double-decker is not really going to make inroads.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Modern double deckers seat 80ish and there were a dozen or more plus 5 more brought in at last minute from Arriva. 15x80 is a reasonable number of people... my point was though that they were left untouched until late in the evening. If they'd brought them round hours earlier, maybe able to do two trips on some routes, it would have made a dent in the total crowds outside Lime St.
Merseyrail did it to crowd-bust well before 10pm.
 
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MattRat

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First, have all Merseyrail trains skip Lime Street. Then, close all Lime Street entrances and exits, bar the Merseyrail station access tunnel. Then, split the tunnel down the middle, and you have a long corridor to funnel people into a somewhat orderly queue. Monitor appropriately
 

D9006

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Modern double deckers seat 80ish and there were a dozen or more plus 5 more brought in at last minute from Arriva. 15x80 is a reasonable number of people... my point was though that they were left untouched until late in the evening. If they'd brought them round hours earlier, maybe able to do two trips on some routes, it would have made a dent in the total crowds outside Lime St.
Merseyrail did it to crowd-bust well before 10pm.
I'm not sure how much you know about the bus industry, but new buses are required to comply with PSVAR (Public Service Vehicles Accessibility (Amendment) Regulations), which has a serious implication on seating; the latest being only 64 seater.

We run 74-seat double-deckers without PSVAR compliance, there are some with 80+

PSVAR compliance is a legal requirement on rail replacement services
 
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Lewisham2221

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Not wishing to carry this debate on and on, Not sure how much you know about the bus industry new buses are required to have psvar , this has a serious implicatio on seating the latest being only 64 seater, we run double deckers without psvar at 74 seats, there are some 80plus but these are not psvar. Psvar is a legal requirement on rail replacement services
I don't know which operator was supplying the buses on this particular day, or what vehicles they were using, but there are plenty of PSVAR compliant double deckers with 70+ seats, plus standing capacity. I've driven buses which were brand new in the last few years, with a total capacity (seated + standing) of 100.

A typical EMU/DMU seats ~60-70 per carriage (so about the same as a double decker bus), but does take more standing passengers than a bus.

If there was 000s waiting a 66 seater double decker is not really going to make inroads
If additionally utilising a fleet of double decker buses wouldn't have made a difference, neither would making sure every train left full to capacity, frankly.

Clearly, given the situation, every last drop of capacity - bus and train - should have been utilised.

I think it's unfair to solely lay the blame at Network Rail's door. Network Rail, BTP, Merseyside Police and Liverpool City Council all had a part to play.
 
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markymark2000

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First, have all Merseyrail trains skip Lime Street. Then, close all Lime Street entrances and exits, bar the Merseyrail station access tunnel. Then, split the tunnel down the middle, and you have a long corridor to funnel people into a somewhat orderly queue. Monitor appropriately
As much as I can see your logic in having people queue in the tunnel/long corridor (I had the same thoughts at one point), It wouldn't work. The entrances onto St Georges Place aren't big enough for the numbers of passengers wanting to join the queue and in an emergency, would just be a crush. That's before you look at the fact the stream of people wanting to go up onto the train would only be able to move as fast as the escalators go which itself would cause issues.

What the tunnel/corridor could do however, is if they made the St Georges Place entrances fully accessible by removing the small steps, is it could act as the booked assistance entrance. Have staff down there to verify that you have booked, if so, you can go in and use either the escalators or lift to get up onto the concourse. This is a low enough number of passengers that the tunnel/corridor could cope with, but also provides a dedicated assistance entrance away from the main queues.



As much as I agree with comments made by others about destination queuing, how many queues would Lime Street need? Cardiff I know it works but their services are much simpler in that most services run all stops, especially on the valleys stuff. Then mainline stuff all trains serve mostly the same stops. There aren't many stations which are served only by one train in that direction. At Liverpool, there are a silly amount of different stopping patterns and so you would end up with some stations being in multiple queues and needing multiple queues for the same direction.
Purely for example, towards Runcorn, you have LNWR and TFW which serve South Parkway, all serve Runcorn, but then beyond Runcorn, Avantis next stop is Crewe, LNWR is Winsford/Acton Bridge/Hartford, and then TFW off to Chester via Frodsham and Helsby. Therefore, just going towards Runcorn suddenly is 4 queues, 1 for each LNWR and TFW to serve exclusive stations, plus then a Runcorn queue for pax who can go on any TFW/LNWR/Avanti, and a Crewe 'fast' queue for pax who can be put onto Avanti or LNWR (no point in merging the Crewe and Runcorn queues else you risk people for Crewe ending up on a TFW service).

Towards Warrington Central you have TPE with one stopping pattern, EMR with another stopping pattern, plus then Northern with 2 different stopping patterns. Plus a number of stations which fit into multiple of these service patterns. You get the idea.

Cardiff is much easier to plan these things because most services are all stops, and there are good interchange points not too far out for regular connections onto other services (ie a Barry/VOG queue people can get on the first train out then wait at Barry if they specifically want Barry Island or VOG. Treherbert, Aberdare, Merthyr similarly at Pontypridd. Rhymney line if the train finishes at Caerphilly, you just wait at Caerphilly and by the time the Rhymney train arrives, it should have dropped off enough people on the way that you aren't full). Liverpools mix of fast and slow trains and various stopping patterns, as well as poor potential for interchanges at outer stations (you wouldn't make someone get on the Avanti to Runcorn to then change onto TFW to Frodsham).
 
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