Media centre

Tuesday 10 Jul 2012

LONDON STATIONS REHEARSAL FOR THE OLYMPICS

Region & Route:

National

Network Rail today rehearsed its crowd management for the Olympic and Paralympic Games at London Bridge and other key stations in the capital. We put in place one-way systems and changed the entrance points for some commuters.

More than 130,000 people travel through London Bridge every morning. We appreciate that today’s rehearsal is frustrating for some commuters and that it takes some people longer to get through the station than normal. We would like to reassure people that today’s test is crucial to make sure that large numbers of people can use the station safely during Games time.

The 30 July, when the equestrian event is held at Greenwich Park, is expected to be the busiest day at London Bridge with an additional 69,000 people using the station, often travelling in different directions to the normal commuter flow. The station is not designed to cope with this so we need to use crowd management measures including one way systems, signage and additional customer service staff.

This evening we will again be testing our plans at London Bridge, Cannon Street and Victoria rail stations. We need to rehearse the systems in both the morning and afternoon as they present us with different challenges as people's travel patterns change.