Staff – safety factors

Traffic direction and car parking is a lot harder than it looks, especially if you are going to do it properly. It takes considerable training and experience, quite a lot of physical effort and a lot of concentration. The following points should be taken into account if the job is to be done effectively and safely.

Legal

Traffic direction on private land within the site can be undertaken by anyone, but should note that for health and safety reasons, persons under 18 years of age should not be used.

Traffic direction on the public highway can usually only be undertaken by police officers or traffic wardens. It is illegal – and dangerous – for others to direct traffic on the road.

Sufficient staff/skills

The traffic manager or roving car park supervisor should make sure that they have plenty of staff to staff the car parks. Even where parking is free of charge, when cars start to arrive you need two people on each gate and a string of marshals inside the car park. If motorists don’t see a car park marshal waving them on about every 30 metres, they will simply go off and decide where they want to park for themselves.

Plan it so that drivers can clearly see the next marshal (with a portable direction sign), waving them on to the parking area.

If at all possible the marshals should be accustomed to working as a team, because if they don’t co-ordinate their efforts they are a lot less effective.

If your staff is unskilled you can make up for a lack of skill with higher numbers of staff. The local police or special constabulary may be persuaded to give your car parking staff some training or advice on directing cars – if you ask very nicely – though lately there have been questions of legal liability for accidents to car parking marshals so they may have to refuse to help!

If you have to boost numbers to make up for reduced skill and experience, you must increase the level of supervision to ensure that traffic is being handled safely!

Proper clothing

Remember that the car park marshals will be out in the open for considerable periods, so you must make sure that they are properly clothed. If they are cold and wet, or if they are sunburned and overcome with heat stroke, they will not be concentrating on what they are doing and will therefore not be doing the best possible job.

In winter they should be warm and dry and protected against the effects of the wind. In summer they should be protected against the effects of the sun. Carrying a golf umbrella and wearing factor 30 sun lotion may damage their ‘street cred’ and not look too cool, but it is effective.

No matter what clothing the marshals are wearing, they should additionally have something that makes them easy to spot – preferably a reflective or fluorescent jacket, or a tabard that makes them easily identifiable to drivers. You must clearly distinguish the car park marshals and other staff members from ordinary members of the public.

I have often seen army cadets assisting with car parking, but nobody has requested or insisted that they wear reflective waistcoats. If they wear that remarkably effective camouflage clothing, it may be very military, but it is unnerving to look into an apparently empty field knowing that there are 12 ‘camouflaged’ marshals out there. Such clothing is totally ineffective and potentially dangerous.

Chair

There will be quiet times, when some marshals do not have any traffic to direct and even times when they can do their job just as well while sitting down. Arrange for, or invite them to bring, a lightweight folding camp chair if you can. When not actively directing traffic, the marshals can take a rest by using their folding chair.

A folding chair is best because, by the nature of the job, car park marshals tend to be very mobile and should not have to carry heavy equipment around. It can be slung over the shoulder of the marshal with a simple length of rope, but I have seen a very well prepared and effective marshal with a chair strapped to a rucksack, which contained food, drink and gloves.

Signs

Car park signs should have been erected at the gates. Direction signs should be available if not already erected inside the gates for the benefit of drivers leaving the site, for example ‘M4 -Turn Left’. ‘Car Park Full’ signs are no doubt ready inside the car park gate, ready to be erected and with appropriate signs giving directions to the next or overflow car parks. Marshals may be issued with or invited to make the portable swivelling arrow signs suggested earlier. Marshals may need additional temporary signs, so if not in the roving car park supervisor’s vehicle, sign making equipment and material should be easily available elsewhere.

Refreshments

As stated above, traffic direction is a fairly physical activity, requiring skill and concentration. The traffic manager should ensure that all marshals are up to standard, i.e. not so short-sighted that they can’t tell the difference between a cow and a Cortina. The traffic manager should also make sure that refreshment and relief breaks are available for the marshals.

Unless you have directed heavy traffic on a cold wet winter day, you cannot possibly know how welcome or refreshing a rest, sitting down in the warm and dry, with a cup of hot soup, can be. Depending on the size of the event, the traffic manager ensure that the car park supervisors check on the status of all marshals at frequent intervals.

Rest break/relief

As traffic control requires such effort and concentration, rest breaks and a relief should be made available.

Staff experience and skill will vary, as will their health and fitness. Holding your arms out and waving them at traffic is very tiring, but unless you continue to do so, the poor motorists will not quite know what you want them to do.

The roving car park supervisor is ideally placed to undertake frequent patrols around the car parks, checking up on the marshals and arranging for rest or toilet breaks when necessary. (Remember that the RCPS may need to give marshals a lift from the car park to the event site, or they could take half an hour just walking in to visit the toilet!)

For the largest of events, if facilities are available, marshals on mountain bikes or, with the greatest of care, on motorcycles, could also ‘slowly and safely’ patrol the more remote areas of car parks and access points. The extra mobile patrols must ensure that they are constantly aware of the members of the public wandering around the car park and site. Combined with the roving car park supervisor, the mobile marshals would be an added car park security resource, which will be effective and inspire the confidence of the public. Note that marshals on motorcycles must be insured for that role and you must remind them that they must still abide by all of the rules of the road and also be sensible and safe, setting a good example on site and in car parks.

Floodlights/torches

If the event runs late, or takes place in the winter months, it is likely that some car park marshalling will be done in the dark, or during twilight hours. If this is the case, it is even more important that marshals are equipped with reflective or fluorescent jackets.

Vehicle and pedestrian gates should be floodlit, as should the marshals at their car park points and police officers in the road, directing traffic. Where mains power not available, floodlighting generator sets are easily hired and very worthwhile for main gates.

Car park marshals could also carry torches, so that their directions are clear. (It is likely that batteries will be a legitimate expense of running the event, because marshals will almost certainly not want to supply their own.)

Communications

I suggest that it is essential for the traffic manager and any roving or mobile supervisors or marshals and the main car park gates to be in radio contact with the event manager and each other. They are on the spot and hold a heavy responsibility for the smooth functioning of a key element in the success of the event.

If there are any problems or special circumstances they should be in radio contact to get an immediate response to the problem. Imagine that a car park marshal decides that their car park is nearly full and traffic has to be diverted to the new car park from a junction half a mile away. In the time it would take that marshal to run half a mile to the junction and ask for traffic to be diverted to the new car park, there would be a half-mile queue of cars from the junction up to the now full and closed car park gate what are you going to do with them?

This also illustrates the need for car park marshals to think ahead and warn their controllers in advance that they can say only fit in another 50 cars before they are full – thus prompting diversion of cars to the next car park and deployment of appropriate signs.