Rugby clash a Test match for transport

["Bill McNiven" <wmcniven@gunzel.ozemail.com.au>]

The growing expertise in moving monster crowds in and out of the Sydney
Olympics site is a tribute to heavy rail.

The story below comes from http://www.smh.com.au on Thursday 26th.  Ignoring
the scrums and tackles inside the stadium, those in the queue for trains
afterwards could be interesting.

I understand that for recent major events at Stadium Australia
* Rail gets around 50% of the crowd
* 60% of these travel to Strathfield / Redfern / Sydney Terminal while 40%
travel to Lidcombe / Granville / Parramatta / Westmead / Seven Hills /
Blacktown.
* Each train loads around 1,500 passengers in 2 minutes.
* Using one platform for City departures and one for Blacktown departures,
each service has a departure every 4 minutes.  This means that the effective
capacity is 45,000 passengers / hour.

If the usual ratios applied to Rugby Union, we might expect 55,000 rail
passengers, including 33,000 to the City.  These city passengers would
depart on 22 trains over a period of 88 minutes.

The *new* challenge is that Rugby Union enthusiasts are not uniformly
distributed across Sydney, so maybe the City's share will be more like
44,000 passengers over 30 trains over 120 minutes.

The initiative "Live entertainment and a temporary bar have been organised
to encourage spectators to wait after the game until the crowds thin out"
sound brilliantly unlike the more traditional Sydney approaches to transport
challenges! One suspects that the temporary "Olympic Roads and Transport
Authority" is doing some lateral thinking that would be difficult for
CityRail on its own.

While it's not mentioned in the story, I suspect that a fair proportion of
fans will be kiwis from Bondi who, if only because Bondi's not really a
motoring suburb, will *all* arrive by train.  Which means rail's market
share being more than 50%.

It will be an interesting night for EMU train-watching!

Regards

Bill
Not an All-Blacks supporter either!

Rugby clash a Test match for transport

By MATTHEW MOORE, Olympics Editor
Olympic organisers have warned Saturday night's Bledisloe Cup match at the
Homebush stadium poses greater transport problems than many Games events,
including the opening ceremony.
Although the Australia-New Zealand rugby game will be the ninth Olympic
transport test event at the stadium, several factors have prompted
organisers to warn it will be their most difficult and that patrons should
expect delays.
Saturday's game is the first sell-out of the 110,000-seat stadium and will
be staged at the same time as another international sporting event, the Pan
Pacs swimming competition at the Homebush Bay International Aquatic Centre.
Although double-header rugby league games early this year drew 104,000
spectators, many left before or during the second game, easing pressures on
rail services.
If the result of Saturday night's game is close, organisers fear all 110,000
spectators will leave at the same time and swamp transport.
Live entertainment and a temporary bar have been organised to encourage
spectators to wait after the game until the crowds thin out.
Eight hundred buses and coaches will take many spectators, but trains will
carry most of them.
The peak capacity of 50,000 passengers an hour will be difficult to achieve
on the night, according to a spokesman for the Olympic Roads and Transport
Authority (ORTA), because up to 80 per cent of spectators will come from the
east and north, and 20 per cent from the west.
"This will make things particularly difficult at the end of the game and
involve the longest time yet taken to clear the eastbound platform of
Olympic Park railway station," he said. "The crowd needs to be patient at
the end of the night. Again, this is harder than the Games because we might
not face such a demographic split then."
ORTA is also concerned that rugby spectators often arrive at matches close
to kick-off. They warn that if they do this on Saturday the transport will
not be able to cope.
Direct trains to Olympic Park will run from Central and Redfern from about 3
pm with bus services to Olympic Park on Easter Show routes starting 45
minutes later.