Buses’ capacity to flexibly support major events was demonstrated again in June when Stagecoach Manchester successfully delivered an operation to transport guests between the city centre and the Parklife music festival in Heaton Park.
Stagecoach has provided transport for the weekend gathering for around a decade. Parklife is among several large events serviced by the group, with others including the Cheltenham Festival and the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Knowledge is shared across those.
Stagecoach Manchester Operations Manager Richard Greaves notes that with such occasions being high-profile, there is no scope for things to go wrong for either the organiser or the bus operator. Key to that is planning. Stagecoach’s work began eight months before Parklife and it produced a 12-page document that “was almost minute-by-minute,” Richard adds.
Interest among event organisers in working with coach and bus operators may grow still further as carbon footprint considerations gain traction. For Parklife, the transport operation comes with its own challenges. Not least are exit arrangements; camping at Heaton Park is barred, and thus a major movement clears attendees at the end of both days. That is the true test, Richard explains.
Fast-moving Parklife operation requires Stagecoach flexibility
Richard and Commercial Manager Mark Mageean organised Stagecoach’s Parklife work this year. An eponymous Metrolink stop is near to Heaton Park, but industrial action was planned by staff on the light rail network over the festival weekend. 70,000 event tickets were sold. They included bus travel and hence no fares were collected by Stagecoach.
Around 35,000 attendees use public transport between Manchester city centre and Parklife, with normally an approximately equal split between bus and light rail. An expected lack of the latter led to a late call for 40 extra buses. They were sourced, but the Metrolink industrial action was ultimately called off.
“It was already looking like a big test. We were then staring at potentially an extra 15,000 passengers with no Metrolink, although it was a chance for bus to steal some thunder,” says Richard.
“We were asked to increase the total to 165 buses,” continues Mark. “Within a week we had sourced the extras and were ready to go. We were confident that we could deliver if everything went to plan, although it was going to be a huge challenge.” With the Metrolink strike off, a small number of buses were borrowed from Stagecoach Yorkshire. First Manchester and Go North West also supported with around 10 vehicles each.
Success judged on dealing with large-scale exodus
Previous years showed that after Parklife closes each evening, the biggest challenge for Stagecoach is recycling buses for subsequent departures. At its worst, that had taken up to two hours over a 10-mile round trip.
This year, work was done in Heaton Park to install bus priority. Such an exercise reduced the turnaround time to 45 minutes at best. Greater Manchester Police was also involved with helping buses to progress, with the force having been onboard from early organisation meetings.
“We had a constant recycle of buses,” says Richard. “Saturday evening went well and we were ready for Sunday. During the morning everything was smooth and we found things relatively quiet. At around 1430hrs I received a call from Transport for Greater Manchester to say that there was a problem with Metrolink that would halt it for the rest of the day, and that a lot of passengers were at Victoria railway station waiting.”
Within what Mark recalls was “around 10 minutes,” Stagecoach had established a ‘bus bridge’ from Victoria to Heaton Park. It carried around 6,000 passengers, although with Metrolink gone for the day there was some trepidation about what the evening would hold.
“We knew it was going to be a big finish, but we were looking at the data and the round trip times were good,” says Richard. “We would load six buses together, with an average loading time per bus of around 20 seconds. Everyone was cleared by 0100hrs, which I believe is a record for Parklife.”
All all-round team effort from Stagecoach to deliver
Resourcing such a project alongside maintaining normal services requires lots of preparation. Mark reports that there is an appetite among staff, whether they be drivers, managers or in support roles, to volunteer to work Parklife.
“We use people who would otherwise be on rest days,” Richard continues. Where drivers are scheduled for a four-day weekend is particularly useful; they can work late on both Saturday and Sunday without impacting rota availability. “We would not take a driver off ‘normal’ services to work Parklife, because those routes are busy over the weekend.”
An engineer is present around the Parklife service to handle any minor defects or cleaning needs. Richard says that such a presence is imperative later in the day. During downtime while the festival is underway, most buses stay at Heaton Park with drivers shuttled to Hyde Road depot for rest and refreshment.
The engineering department further contributed by planning maintenance around the event, and by ensuring that buses used were cleaned, fuelled and ready to return to normal by 0600hrs on Monday morning.
“You could not tell that they had been working all weekend and in some cases were covered in muddy footprints a few hours earlier,” Richard adds. “This operation proved the versatility of bus travel and what we can deliver.”
