London has been at the epicentre of a number of royal events over the years, and the Coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla was no different. 👑
From bus wraps, to crowns and royally good PA announcements, we certainly celebrated like Kings and Queens! However, a lot of work goes into ensuring that customers can travel safely and smoothly throughout the network. 💙
Here’s an insight into what goes on behind the scenes and what we did to mark this wonderful occasion!
Keeping London moving at the Coronation
Events of this scale can bring about lots of disruption. They can be the perfect recipe for crowding, congestion and confusion. 🤯
It’s important we provide customers as much information as possible. This is where our Travel Demand Management (TDM) team come into play. Their role is to understand where congestion and crowding is likely to take place. They then influence customers to take different routes, travel at different times or take a different form of transport.
For the Coronation, the TDM team:
🤝 Supported operational colleagues, as well as partners from various Government departments to understand the expected impacts. This included road closures, bus diversions, changes to cycleways and walking routes
ℹ️ Developed bespoke travel advice for those attending events and for non event-goers to make their journeys. This focused on asking customers to plan journeys, check before they travel and use our real time journey planning tools like TfL Go
📢 Delivered this travel advice through all our communications channels to ensure accurate and timely advice.
They also worked with Network Rail, the Rail Delivery Group and Highways England to share and amplify messaging to support journeys that were starting from outside London. The special edition travel advice leaflet was the best example of this joined-up approach.
Over the weekend itself, the team were physically based in an event liaison facility that brought all the organisations working on this together. Here they were ready to respond to any emerging issues and tweak communications if and when required.
After months of planning and preparation from countless teams within TfL and beyond, it was incredible to see everyone’s hard work come together to support such an historic event and ultimately keep London moving.
Lauren Barton, TDM Planning & Delivery Manager
A network in celebration
Making sure customers got around smoothly was one half of the job, the other half was to help everyone celebrate! You may have noticed some of the things we did to mark the occasion. 🎉
The communications campaign started around five weeks before the Coronation weekend to ensure we had time to pre-warn customers of the impacts and what they needed to consider when planning their journeys. Communications activity then ramped up in the weeks and days leading up to the event itself to get everyone excited. This included 👇🏽
‘Crowndels’ and commemorative posters
TfL’s iconic roundel was crowned with a likeness of St Edward’s Crown. The St Edward’s Crown was used on Coronation Day to crown His Majesty King Charles III. The celebratory “Crowndels” were found at a number of stations around the event area. 👑
A commemorative poster was also displayed across the network. It paid homage to the one created in 1953 to celebrate the Coronation of Elizabeth II. The design featured the Crown and the TfL Roundel reimagined using the colours of TfL services and Underground lines. This was a symbol of the pivotal role TfL plays in the lives of Londoners and visitors during history-making moments. 👌🏼
Royal PA announcement
Their Majesties recorded a special PA announcement for us. 📢
This was played over the weekend across all our Tube stations (as well as all National Rail stations in the country!)
Wrapped buses and bus shelters
Five buses with commemorative wraps were in service in the capital in four different colours. 😍
The buses were on routes taking in some iconic central London locations linked to the Royal Family, including Horse Guards Parade and Westminster Abbey, and Royal Parks like Hyde Park. 💂🏽♀️
We also installed a crown bearing the likeness of St Edward’s Crown on three bus shelters on Oxford Street. Customers on the top deck of London buses or using bus stops in the area were able to spot them. The crowns were part of a collaboration with the New West End Company, who funded them.
Wrapped Santander Cycles
20 Santander Cycles including two e-bikes featured special commemorative wraps in three different colours. 🚲
Illuminated bridges
We worked with the Illuminated River Foundation to light up Westminster and Lambeth Bridges in red and blue over the Coronation weekend. 🌉
Illuminated River is a long-term art installation transforming the Thames at night with a series of light artworks spanning nine bridges from London to Lambeth.
Overall, the weekend was a huge success! The TDM team got customers to where they needed to go smoothly, while celebrating along the way. 🎉
Find out more about TDM
Find out more about what the TDM team does at TfL.
And next time you’re out and about, make sure to use our travel tools to check your travel.