In message , at 18:23:48 on
Mon, 16 Jan 2012, Paul Corfield remarked:
The exit route will be off the south end of the concourse as expected.
The footbridge and escalators will be for those using the upper level
of the new concourse. I took a little walk round and I think there
will a large circulating area between the buffer stops and exit
gateline. While I take your point about the potential for mixed flows
I wonder if the new way of working will be any worse than people
pouring off trains on to a small jam packed concourse with people
simultaneously heading on to trains.

One of the changes they've made in the last year or two (I can't say
exactly when) was to rope off a corridor across the old concourse in
front of the departure board. I suppose that directs people towards the
newish stairs down to the tube station, but it does reduce the number of
people filtering through the waiting crowds.

Although that begs the question of the waiting crowds. Years ago they
used to have queue "lanes" marked on the floor of the concourse and
people would more or less stand in lines waiting for their train to be
ready. Now it's just one chaotic scrum because no-one is told which
platform the train is leaving from until the very last minute.

Presumably they'll be trying to encourage people to wait on the new
concourse for the platform announcement, rather than filtering through
the barriers to the platform area and then waiting. That's the scheme at
StPancrasMML, assisted by a lack of platform information beyond the
barriers. Of course, what that does is create a long queue for the
barriers as soon as the platform is announced, with people increasingly
anxious that the train's going to leave without them.

I don't wish to debate the rights or wrongs of St Pancras. I would
merely comment that neither station is a green field site and
therefore there will inevitably be some compromises about how you deal
with flows when dealing with intensive train services and the related
floods of passengers.

The first set of escalators for the MML platforms should have been
turned through 90 degrees, to end near their ticket office. As it is,
the MML concourse is needlessly remote from that ticket office, the main
departure board (which seems a bit lost where it is at the moment) the
toilets, SPILL barriers and the Northern ticket hall for the tube. Even
if the rest of the design remained, that one small change would make
quite a difference.

Kings Cross will be an interesting "experiment", because I can't think
of another big terminus where there's not a substantial concourse beyond
the buffers. I know they realise they have issues at Kings Cross with
persuading passengers toward the Piazza (doubtless vainly when it's
pouring with rain outside).
--
Roland Perry