Manchester United Football Club needs no introduction. With 330 million supporters world wide, its fame has spread well beyond the borders of the UK. As one of the founding members of the UK premier league, its home stadium at Trafford Park has almost iconic status with the club's fans.
The stadium has a capacity of 76,000, so security and the safe movement of fans on match days is of paramount importance. Entrance to the ground is controlled via turnstiles, while departure is facilitated via a series of gates at the rear of the stands. To prevent the log jam which would be caused by emptying the entire stadium at exactly the same time, departure from the stadium's stands is staggered by seating block. This enables a fast, safe and efficient means of clearing the stadium.
Mark Gyves, Manchester United's Electrical Services Manager, explains: "We had a system in place which enabled us to open the doors at the back of the stands individually. However, as each stand has a number of doors to be opened this wasn't very convenient. The system was also pretty old and that presented its own problems."
Garndene Communications installed Net2 and enlisted Paxton Access' help in designing some bespoke elements to the software, allowing the control of egress from the stadium at the end of a match.
Adrian Brown of Garndene said: "I know there are proprietary systems out there that could come close to doing what Manchester United needed but we wanted to be able to meet their exact requirements and working with Paxton Access has enabled us to do this."
