Improving Crowd Management at Future Special Events
I was glad to see another poster say that their red line ride home from the fireworks was quick and easy. However, I’m sure a lot of BOS riders (myself included) had a slightly less quick and easy trip.
I’d welcome some education on how WMATA currently structures their special event procedures, but have some specific improvements that I think should be made. I understand that 250 is a unique stress test and that the system was under more load after the fireworks than typical July 4 nights, but I still think there are areas where Metro fell short and should improve:
- CROWD CONTROL/PLATFORM AND BOARDING MANAGEMENT. There was a super effective WMATA person at Smithsonian yelling at people to move into the middle and back of the cars. None of the other stations had that. All the core stations should have personnel stationed at each car door entrance on the platform to make sure people getting off the train can get off first and encourage people to condense in the train. A lot of tourists don’t get that they needed to wait for people to get off first or move into the center of the car. Having more personnel proactively managing will improve passenger flow and reduce station dwell times for trains.
- ENTRY ONLY STATION BLOCKING. L’enfant’s north entrance (where there’s escalator work) only had one escalator going up, leading to significant crowding at the top of the escalator. The up escalator was barely used, and I felt bad for the two solitary people who were exiting and pushed their way through all of the crowd. Having both escalators be down escalators (and keeping core mall stations including l’enfant, smithsonian, and fed triangle entry-only for an hour after fireworks end) would alleviate top-entrance crowding and allow better flow.
- TRAIN CAR SEGMENTING. I understand WMATA already increases frequencies and I’m sure utilizes pocket tracks to their maximum ability during high volume events like the 4th. Despite frequency being pushed to the max, core station crowding loads aren’t spread evenly. My train at l’enfant filled up immediately and was able to accommodate only a handful of additional people. Barely anyone got off until past Rosslyn, and the platforms at l’enfant through Rosslyn were packed with people waiting to go eastbound. This means that actual boardings decrease dramatically after the first core station because of space constraints and that passengers at Rosslyn have to wait the longest to go eastbound. Spreading the boarding load across all stations is necessary to consistently draw down platform numbers at core stations. I’d approach this two ways: break 8-car trains into 2-car segments, where two cars are reserved for specific stations. (e.g. cars 1-2 board at l’enfant, cars 3-4 board at smithsonian, cars 5-6 board at fed triangle, cars 7-8 board at metro center) The doors on the assigned cars wouldn’t open until their reserved station, but after their reserved station open and close normally, allowing excess capacity to be used but ensuring a minimum capacity per train per station. Alternately, using entry-only policies on l’enfant-fed triangle, run trains in series. New In service empty trains take on their first passengers at l’enfant, smithsonian, and federal triangle and all advance to metro center. Once all three stations are cleared, a new series of empty trains move in to each core station to take on new passengers.