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BROUGHTON HIGH SECURITY LAUNCHES
SECURITY RATED TURNSTILE
Broughton Control’s rapidly expanding High Security Division has launched a new high security turnstile, the Defender 970, aimed at customers requiring unsupervised control of pedestrian access within a site perimeter.
The Defender 970 High Security Turnstile is the latest addition to a range of products from Broughton High Security aimed at front line security locations including ports, airports, prisons, police stations and government buildings as well as high risk commercial and industrial facilities such as banks and oil refineries.
Consultation and teamwork is the solution to successful crowd control
Article written for Building Engineer magazine November 2002.
At a time when many sporting venues are suffering from a lack of support, crowd control maybe the last thing on people's minds but nevertheless it remains a vital issue. Laurence Goode, managing director of UK entrance control solutions provider Broughton Controls, suggests that teamwork is the answer to creating successful crowd control systems.
British football alone carries something of a legacy of spectator tragedies. 306 fans have died and a further 3,500 have been injured over the last century in 27 separate incidents. Admittedly this is from a spectator base in excess of 1.2 billion fans but nevertheless we are not talking about casualties in a war here, these are totally avoidable accidents - tragedies that have occurred because of a combination of poor crowd management and sub-standard stadium facilities.
Before the death of 96 football fans at Hillsbrough in 1989, crowd control was seen mainly as tackling outbreaks of football hooliganism. Following the tragic events at Sheffield however, Lord Justice Taylor's investigation and subsequent report has changed the face of UK football stadia.
Of the seventy-six recommendations that came out of the Taylor Report, the phasing out of terracing has resulted in what is arguably the most visible and in some cases contentious change to football grounds in the UK . The overall impact of the recommendations however has had implications for every part of the stadium particularly with regard to the prevention of bottlenecks that could lead to the risk of another 'Hillsbrough'.
Clubs and stadium designers alike have had to totally rethink their approach to the provision of facilities and crowd management. The burden of crowd control has now been shifted onto the individual club with the police responsible for dealing with crime and public order offences at and around the stadium rather than marshalling spectators.
One of the key locations for preventing dangerous bottlenecks and subsequent crowd build up is obviously at the point of entry and exit to the and from the stadium. These point have to fulfil two opposing briefs, namely to permit a controlled entry into the stadium, being secure against unauthorised entry yet on the other hand they must also permit the fastest possible exit from the stadium, particularly in cases of emergency.
In addition to these basic functions there are also many other operations to consider. The ability to check entry tickets, count the number of people entering the stadium and take admission payment, the ease of access for disabled visitors and ultimately the facility to eject troublemakers from the ground without the risk of opening the floodgates to unauthorised entry.
Rules and regulations on stadium capacity, minimum rates of entry and exit and other such statistics are of course laid down in black and white in such publications as the 'Green Guide to safety at sports grounds' but such figures were only ever intended as a starting point.
When working with the movement or flow of any material, impeding the flow at any one point is guaranteed to create potential problems elsewhere in the system. When the material in question happens to be several thousand highly emotional and unpredictable sports fans then the potential problems can be multiplied many fold.
Imagine the following scenario as a simple illustration of this point. As fans enter a stadium, one turnstile in a bank of three suddenly ceases to function. This could be a mechanical breakdown or perhaps simply a fan with the wrong ticket for that entrance insisting on being allowed in. Whatever the reason, entry capacity has suddenly been cut by a third. You now have a whole column of fans trying to join other queues, there is a build-up of people spilling out onto the surrounding roads and as delays continue anger among the fans builds, creating a potential flashpoint for trouble.
This is a simple example of the sort of eventualities that need to be taken into consideration at the earliest stages of stadium planning. The issues around crowd control are indeed so complex that Stadia cannot be designed in isolation from their surroundings. Simply specifying equipment that meets statutory requirements does not guarantee crowd safety and a smooth running stadium.
Even the surroundings of a stadium will need to be taken into consideration when specifying crowd control measures. The speed with which people can disperse once outside the ground and available areas for queuing prior to entry will have a massive impact on the traffic handling capability required of the entrance control equipment. This brings highways, local authorities and the police to the early stages of project consultation to help ensure that in solving one crowd control problem we are not creating another elsewhere.
The only effective way in which to make entrance control equipment choices is to start with a fundamental understanding of what is required. This means covering all the issues of traffic flow, rates of flow, safety, control systems, supervision and even the skill levels required for the operation and supervision of the equipment. It is also important to consider how critical the system is to the particular site with a view to failure procedures, maintenance and emergency repair support.
So who has the knowledge for this process and who is responsible for each function? Simple questions I know, but this is the area in which the whole process can start to fall apart. An architect may be concerned with balancing the aesthetics of design with the technicalities of building regulations, a construction company with building to plans and budgets whilst the crowd safety and control equipment manufacturers may be supplying off the shelf components to the relevant specification. Each element in isolation may be perfect but the combined result could be dangerously or expensively flawed just because the various suppliers have not had the chance to consult as a team on the job in question.
Often the whole team isn't assembled until after the contracts have been awarded and this is when the problems are discovered, leading to the inevitable specification amendments and ultimately budget and delivery schedule overruns.
Over recent years Broughton Controls has been involved in crowd control projects at a number of major UK stadia and through this work we have learned a number of vital lessons. Possibly the most important of these lessons has been the benefit of an early involvement in all projects.
By bringing your potential provider into the project at an early stage it is far easier to achieve a cost effective operational design, as you will be able to examine specifications carefully against the site requirements. A well-designed barrier or turnstile may operate flawlessly, even in a high frequency site, with minimum maintenance requirements. If the site is subject to regular vandalism however, an ultra heavy-duty industrial product may prove to be a better investment. Possibly two or three times more expensive as an initial installation, but more than paying back that investment over time in reduced operational costs and savings on maintenance and repair budgets.
Our company has seen the benefits of early involvement with the recent project for the Commonwealth Games Stadium in Manchester . It took many months of consultation involving the project architects, contractors, the stadium owners and our design team to put together the final specification for the 86 entrance turnstiles. The end result, which balanced the aesthetic, technical, safety, construction, operational and budgetary requirements may be a custom built product but the most important aspect is that all concerned knew in advance that the system was ideally suited to its intended environment and application. The system proved itself earlier this year - capacity crowds of over 25,000 attending the Games for ten consecutive days without a hiccough.
On projects of this size early consultation is essential. Crowd control and safety systems must work first time, every time. In our industry we don't have the luxury of testing all possible scenarios at full scale so it becomes even more important to use the experience and expertise of all those involved to obtain the best possible end result.
Employing suppliers who fully understand the whole process from design to operation and maintenance and putting them together at an early stage may involve a little additional effort for all concerned but it will reap great benefits in the long term. If your supplier is able to design or re-design products to suit your specific application, understands any problems that may be encountered on site during installation and appreciates the wear and tear that the installed system will have to endure, then they will be able to provide the correct equipment in the first place. Admittedly, this approach may not produce the cheapest quote that lands on your desk. It is, however, far more likely to reduce overall costs by ensuring that you do not keep paying for mistakes at a later date for an ill conceived system that may require constant maintenance, cost a great deal in delays and inconvenience or possibly even fail completely.
A few extra hours of consultation or pounds spent in preparation is of little significance if it means the job is right first time. That little extra spent on ensuring correct project specification will be rewarded many times over. Not just in financial terms but in spectator comfort and goodwill. After all, without the crowds we wouldn't be in business and our businesses must avoid at all costs any repetition of tragic incidents such as Hillsborough.
Laurence Goode is managing director of Broughton Controls of Oldham which has built up over the last twenty-five years into one of the UK 's foremost entrance control specialists. With a full ISO 9001 2000 accredited design, manufacturing, installation and maintenance capability Broughton regularly work alongside major architects, specifiers and contractors and have been involved in numerous notable projects including Manchester United, Sunderland and Southampton football stadia plus the Manchester City Commonwealth Games Stadium.
Guide to safety at sports grounds (Green Guide) 4th edition London : Stationary Office; 1997. 247pp ISBN 0-11-300095-2 £15.00 This updated volume of the "green guide" provides guidance to local authorities, ground managers and technical advisors in assessing safe spectator capacities. It contains guidelines on sports ground safety, covering such issues as stewarding, ingress and egress, barriers, seating and terraces, disabled facilities, fire safety, and communications.