Client Brief

A major redevelopment has taken place at the existing Perry Barr Station in Birmingham as part of the regeneration of the surrounding area. Waldeck were the lead design organisation providing full multi-disciplinary services on the scheme for Galliford Try who are the main contractor.

Project Overview

As part of our involvement on the project, our team provided Pedestrian Flow Modelling. Pedestrian Flow Modelling was used to establish the suitability of the design option for predicted future demand forecast of 1.1 million passengers in 2027, which would see a 58% increase from the base flows.

OUR SOLUTION

Our team utilised Oasys Software’s MassMotion to create a 3D model from the model created by our architectural team.

Simulations were set up and created to align with Perry Barr’s peak train times, with Platform 1 and 2 trains arrival being 3 minutes apart with the passenger boarding and alighting demands taken from peak 3-hour survey data and factored by the 58%.

The model was stress-tested for a number of additional scenarios, including out of hours operations, event traffic, a degraded state such as when an entrance is out of use due to a malfunction or closed for safety reasons, provision of ticket barriers on peak trains and station design stress test determining maximum capacity of pedestrians during peak hours before elements are over stressed.

Pedestrian Flow Modelling has confirmed the suitability of the team’s design at each GRIP stage and aided the streamlining of the scheme to suit budget and visual aspirations. In addition, the passive provision of gate lines was simulated aiding future development of the station should these be installed at a later date.

Achievements

West Midlands Railway confirmed record-breaking travel numbers during the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Amongst the success, record numbers of passengers visited the newly-redeveloped Perry Barr station during the 12-day event (for the athletics and opening/closing ceremonies) with more than 25,000 passengers passing through.

Malcolm Holmes, Executive Director of West Midlands Rail Executive, said:

“With more than one million Games tickets sold, staging this event was a monumental challenge for our rail network but thanks to a lot of hard work from across the industry it is one we have passed with flying colours.”

West Midlands Railway confirmed record-breaking travel numbers during the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Amongst the success, record numbers of passengers visited the newly-redeveloped Perry Barr station during the 12-day event (for the athletics and opening/closing ceremonies) with more than 25,000 passengers passing through.

Malcolm Holmes, Executive Director of West Midlands Rail Executive, said:

“With more than one million Games tickets sold, staging this event was a monumental challenge for our rail network but thanks to a lot of hard work from across the industry it is one we have passed with flying colours.”