Staggered Entry Tickets

[pedmills]

As per usual, there were locals ranting in the paper about the festival. This year at least a couple mentioned staggered entry tickets to try to avoid major traffic jams.

Not sure this could realistically work, but what do you people think of the idea?

Edited July 3, 2009 by pedmills

[spammachine]

As long as I got a ticket for the day of opening - sounds good to me ;p

[shangri-la_steward]

As long as I got a ticket for the day of opening - sounds good to me ;p

[mr cambo]

tbh with people arriving between Wednesday morning and Friday afternoon, it is fairly staggered already.

Can't see what can be improved unless the country lanes are made into motorways, and I'm not sure the locals would want that either!

[eFestivals]

As per usual, there were locals ranting in the paper about the festival. This year at least a couple mentioned staggered entry tickets to try to avoid major traffic jams.

Not sure this could realistically work, but what do you people think of the idea?

there used to be staggered entry, by the festival opening on Wednesday and not starting till Friday.

I really think the festival f**ked up big time by advertising itself as a Wed-Sun fest this year. It's opened a whole new load of problems for them, which will now be hard to reverse even if they call it a Fri-Sun fest next year.

[barrychuckle]

tbh with people arriving between Wednesday morning and Friday afternoon, it is fairly staggered already.

Can't see what can be improved unless the country lanes are made into motorways, and I'm not sure the locals would want that either!

[oafc0000]

I might be wrong but a staggared entry system may well cause more consecutive days of chaos....

The roads around there arent built for 30 / 40,000 cars being on them... Maybe its better to have one nightmare day... as I understand it the roads werent too bad on Thursday ?

[Activeman]

Rocked up on Thursday at around Midday and drove straight in, never use to be able to do that. Although I have to say I may as well have parked in Bristol as the walk to the site through the car parks was Mammoth.

So surely based on this one day of continuous traffic is better than delays over a 3 day period?

[Red Day]

Left Bristo Airport at the back of 9 on the Thursday morning and got there in no time at all. Taxi from Airport (top bloke driving it) took us via some back roads and stopped in Wells for some supplies.

Mates on the other hand took about 9 hours on the Weds on the bus.

Don't think there's any instant solution. You have probably over 100,000 folks making their way along two way roads to one point. Seems obvious there's going to be delays.

[johnmcga]

I don't see how they can ever avoid delays. You've got - what - 170k people on site, with probably more than half of them arriving on the Wednesday and Thursday. With the roads round there the way they are, there are always going to be issues.

The only solution I can come up with is to make far more tickets conditional on getting a bus or the train. That seems to be the only way to address the cause of the problem: i.e. too many cars for the available road space.

Also worth noting that those of us who don't come by car can get caught up the jams too. Perhaps they could add in more priority routes for buses to make arriving by public transport a more attractive proposition.

[Stuzo]

Perhaps someone could explain to the local residents that 4 days every 5 years of gridlock really isn't a big problem in the grand scheme of things, some would say it's a fair price to pay in exchange for the £73m the local economy benefits from as a result of the festival.

*the above comment is deliberately facetious, I realise that there is no reason for not exploring alternatives just because you could live with the problem and I am very grateful to the people of Glastonbury and the surrounding areas for letting us come and stay for a week every year.

[Monkismo]

This year was isolated thought wasn't it? In 8 times of going I've never experienced the hell of Wednesday and we leave the same time every year. The closure of the M4 didn't help and loads of people decided to laugh off the A303 from London due to roadworks hence the west side was murder and the people who went east got in on fine although had quite a walk.

[fumps]

I was there 7:30 Wednesday morning. we was waiting for the gates to open

[mr cambo]

Rocked up on Thursday at around Midday and drove straight in, never use to be able to do that.

[HurrahBrother]

The only solution I can come up with is to make far more tickets conditional on getting a bus or the train. That seems to be the only way to address the cause of the problem: i.e. too many cars for the available road space.

[Pads]

There definately needs to be benefits for getting public transport!

I think priority bus routes to the site is something they really need to sort out for next year and walking around the hospitality camping wasnt ideal either!

[commandlinegamer]

Oh, and how about a rickshaw taxi rank

[Monkismo]

There definately needs to be benefits for getting public transport!

I think priority bus routes to the site is something they really need to sort out for next year and walking around the hospitality camping wasnt ideal either!

[ukslim]

I don't know about anybody else but the one thing that really annoyed me with the traffic queues was the amount of gaps that some people were leaving when the traffic did move. Just because you're going to stop again in 50 yeards doesn't mean it's pointless moving forward. If everyone did it the traffic would be as far a John O Bloody Groats!!! Also there should be a ban on people who get out of their car or open the doors every time they stop. All these little delays will mean a lot to the people at the back and can be the difference between getting on site on Wednesday or Thursday morning! *ends rant*

[Monkismo]

Queue theory FAIL!

[ukslim]

Why? Just 50 cars leaving a 50 yard gap between the car in front adds around a mile and a half to a queue. I'm not saying its the sole reason the queues were so bad just that people who don't close gaps don't help matters!

[Monkismo]

Even if that were to happen, closing that mile and a half doesn't get you there any faster.

[Storm_NL]

I'm not sure a staggered entry system would work....

Look at the way the airlines do it.

They'll ask only passengers with seats in rows 14-24 to queue... and what happens?

Everyone gets in the queue.

You'll get the same problem at Glastonbury, except that there'll be 10,000 other vehicles behind the car in question, and not enough provision to turn them away...

[ukslim]

Think of it this way:

You're queing in the post office (a little one with only one window). There are ten people in front of you, 1 meter apart. So you're person 10, person 1 gets served next. You have 10m to travel to the window.

Person 9 doesn't move until person 7 is getting served. This bothers you...

So person 7 is at the window, person 8 is 1m from the window, person 9 is still 9m from the window and you are 10m from the window.

Now, while 7 gets served, 9 walks forward. By the time 8 gets served, he's right behind.

You can stay 1m behind him, or you can wait a bit before walking the whole 10m. Eitherway, you get to the counter at exactly the same time.

Now, there is another angle to all of this - while you stand at the 10m spot, with 9m of empty space in front of you, the queue might be building up behind you, and it might snake out onto the street, where it would get in the way of people not queueing.

That would be equivalent to the Glasto queue extending back to somewhere where it blocks non-Glastonbury traffic. Yeah, that might be inconvenient (but not to the festivalgoer)