Stadium has been working with Premier League football club Burnley F.C since the company was founded as StadiumTM in 2009.
The company is the primary provider of crowd management and traffic management requirements for the club at the Claret’s home stadium Turf Moor.
Stadium’s traffic management services were first put to the test in a friendly against Leeds United in August 2009 and the company has since added the deployment of Hostile Vehicle Mitigation (HVM) barriers.
Services are also provided inside the stadium, ensuring crowd safety and providing customer services for spectators enjoying the match.
The Challenge
The Clarets’ home stadium Turf Moor regularly attracts more than 20,000 fans when it hosts a fixture, and it is important that fans have a safe and enjoyable experience.
Stadium’s team had to provide a viable traffic management solution to ensure fan safety and smooth flowing traffic around the stadium on every match day.
Turf Moor is situated just outside of the town centre in Burnley, in a built-up area and the stadium is surrounded by tight terraced streets.
This makes traffic management even more of a complex issue, in comparison to modern football stadia built in vast, wide open spaces.
These tight streets also make parking around the stadium difficult, which enhances the importance of being able to provide clear directions to official car parks and ensure safe parking practice on arrival.
To add to the challenges of the built-up environment around the ground, football fans can also be unpredictable on a match-day and will abandon pavements and walk on the roads.
Football matches are also high-risk events, with thousands of people on the streets at one time, who will need to be protected in the event of a car ramming attack.
Once inside the stadium, the range of challenges continue, with crowd safety taking precedence, whilst still protecting the fan experience.
The Work
It was key that on match day’s Stadium’s impact was effective but not disruptive to the experience of fans – some of whom will have travelled from around the country to attend.
Stadium deploys more than 100 of its fully-trained and experienced staff around Turf Moor on a match-day.
The traffic management team are responsible for the implementation of a match-day traffic management plan at the stadium.
This includes operating key road closures in the streets around the ground and ensuring that vehicles are directed to follow key diversion routes. Not all traffic going around Turf Moor on a match-day is heading towards the event.
The diversion routes operated are designated to provide the quickest, and safest, passage for traffic looking to head out of Burnley town centre.
By providing a joined-up approach around Turf Moor, Stadium staff direct traffic and operate the car parks. This approach ensures that traffic reaches the destination safely and is managed from end-to-end by experienced staff.
On arrival at the car parks, the car park stewarding team supervise the organisation of the vehicles which are looking to park.
To ease traffic flowing from the match, vehicles are required to be organised in a fashion where they can smoothly leave the car park with minimal difficulty.
Stadium stewards monitor and operate all of the turnstiles at Turf Moor, ensuring safe entry and a steady flow of fans into the venue. Stadium’s staff are trained in customer service care and place an emphasis on ensuring these measures do not impact the fan experience.
The match-day offer from Stadium has expanded from traffic management to the introduction of Hostile Vehicle Mitigation (HVM) barriers to protect fans.
When first implemented in 2017, 38 metres of barriers were installed around the stadium.
The innovative barrier system allows pedestrians, emergency vehicles, VIP’s and suppliers to pass through safely which ensures a safe experience for all spectators and local residents.
The Results
Stadium has now been working with Burnley FC on match-days for more than a decade, which is testament to the effective work carried out by the company’s experienced staff.
The introduction of the HVM barriers set Burnley FC as a trailblazing club, becoming the first team to use the unique ATG Access Surface Guard barriers.
The innovative barrier system allows pedestrians to pass through safely, can be dropped in less than 30 seconds to enable vehicle access and are accessible for wheelchair users.
