Major logistical operations for two national events in London – King Charles III’s Coronation and the London Marathon – have been supported by Telent as part of two large scale events for Transport for London (TfL).
Telent was contracted to remove traffic signals along the Westminster route of the Marathon, and for the King’s coronation route from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Cathedral, via Trafalgar Square and Whitehall.
The removal of the traffic signals was critical to ensure that the movements of the Military were unimpeded for the coronation route during rehearsals and the main event. Additionally to ensure that the media and television cameras were able access the best vantage points for streaming the news coverage of both events to the millions watching at home.
The works were carried out ahead of the overnight rehearsals in the run up to Saturday 6 May and at the Westminster section of the Marathon route for the race on Sunday 23 April. The poles were re-installed before normal business hours for TfL to return transport routes to normalcy and ‘keep London moving’.
The works followed the success of similar work carried out ahead of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.
Major operations were involved for two major events including the historic coronation of the new King of the United Kingdom and 14 Commonwealth realms. We are proud to have been chosen by our long-term customer TfL and to have continued our successful relationship with them.
“The works required significant communication and collaboration with all client organisations involved to ensure that everybody was well informed of the functions and plans for the day, leaving no room for confusion or miscommunication. Our teams worked tirelessly around the clock to guarantee that all aspects of the preparations were taken care of and adapted to the changing plans and factors that obviously affect operations of this scale.
"These traffic signal poles have been upgraded to a plugged and socketed solution to allow easier removal and re-installation. A number of poles were still hard wired which introduced a level of risk to tight timeframes for activities to be completed in an already complex event.
Telent worked alongside Identity Global, Transport for London, Royal Parks, Westminster City Council, Metropolitan Police, and Department for Digital, G Force, Briant Traffic, MCF, RoadTech, Hexagonal, L Traffic, Metro Traffic Services