We attended 4 sessions of the Rugby 7s at the Coventry Stadium:
- Friday morning, attendance 10k-15k
- Friday evening, attendance
- Saturday morning attendance 20k
- Saturday evening, attendance 30k (i.e. full)
There were various park and ride options:
- JLR in Coventry south east – morning and evening sessions – own P&R service
- UNI MCP – city centre east – morning and evening sessions – Pool Meadow service
- Gosford Street – near to UNI MCP – evening sessions – Pool Meadow service
- Grove Street – near to UNI MCP – evening sessions – Pool Meadow service
- Old/closed IKEA site Croft Road – city centre west – one session per day – own P&R service.
We used the UNI MCP on all occasions which was a short walk to Pool Meadow.
At Pool Meadow there were 3 bus stands allocated, these being the other side of the coach island. Whenever we required a bus from Pool Meadow there were always 2 on stand and sometimes 3. The front bus loading one at a time was adequate for the flow of passengers – so generally walk up, get on and go – maximum waiting time being the 5 minutes of so it takes to load 80 (approx) passengers.
The route to the stadium was past the National Express Coventry bus depot, round part of the inner ring road and then out along the A444 dual carriageway. The A444 being used by all the P&R mentioned above. Between Pool Meadow and the Nat Ex depot, a further car park was in use as a bus park and holding area, capacity 30 buses parked in a circle railway roundhouse style.
At the Coventry Stadium, the 3 regular stadium car parks were taken over for Commonwealth Games use and thus not available for car parking.
Car park C, to the west of the A444, was a big bus station/bus park – being used for the above P&Rs and maybe another shuttle service. In the car park bus station, there were 6-8 bus stops on east side with ziz-zag queues allowing multiple loadings/unloadings and each with a P&R label so each bus top only served one P&R. Passengers unloaded at the east side stops went through the A444 underpass to the south side stadium entry. Near the west side, was a island with 3 bus stops which was mainly for unloading in which case passengers were sent over the footbridge to the north side gates of the stadium.
On arrival at car park C, each bus had to pass through a normal car park barrier (just wide enough) – there was one for in and one for out - and then just one (for in and out) second heavy steel security barrier gate (Westminster style?) again just wide enough which would inflict severe damage to your bus if hit.
The space in the centre of this bus station was reserved for parking, say 6-8 rows each with 6-8 buses so nominally 40-50 – this was full of buses at the end of each session ready for a mass exodus.
After each session, there was minimal queuing for buses due to well signed bus stops, multiple loading points per destination and good stewarding.
However, at one point on the first evening exit, there was a queue of maybe 12 buses waiting to gain the A444 city centre bound as the traffic lights seemed to be on a normal setting which only allowed 2 buses out at a time – but this was promptly overcome by someone somewhere taking control of the traffic light system and keeping the green on long enough for all the waiting buses to leave – there were 15 queued at this point.
In addition to the above P&R, there was also a separate shuttle from the Coventry Rail Station to/from the Stadium, also arriving via the A444, then into the Arena shopping park, round the north end (by the Stadium rail station) with space for 2-3 buses at a time. The return route was round the back of the shopping mall, past the shopping mall mini bus station (used by Nat Ex Cov service 5), then Foleshill Road to A444.
Passenger counting appeared to be under the control of each driver – as every passenger passed the driver, the driver would click the ticket machine.
I did also notice some buses appearing to the north of the stadium, Winding House Lane roundabout but do not know what they were deployed on – another P&R service that did not venture to the south side of the stadium.
We also noticed after each evening session, there was a steady stream on empty buses coming from Birmingham along the M6 to J3 for the A444 for the stadium – extra buses having finished elsewhere being drafted in for the mass exodus?
So basically, there were double deckers everywhere in abundance. And if you drove along the A444 before or after a session, you would see a stream of double deckers going the other way.
Where from? We saw route ELEVEN (Ardossan), Cambridge P&R, Exeter P&R, Route 1 Lancaster Uni (Morecambe), Peterborough, HOP12 (Torquay), X17 Gold (Chesterfield) and more.