After the heatwaves, the big events

Summer on London Underground is defined by two things: overheating and big events.

As work and school dies down, the calendar is overrun with festivals, concerts, parades, protests, all packing stations with unusually loud and busy footfall. As station staff, you might assume that this is a particularly difficult period. Yes and no.

Undeniably, more people means more work. With big events, the questions asked all tend to match one another which simplifies things a little, but rowdy sport and music fans and higher traffic than usual bring the usual challenges.

For the really big events — Notting Hill Carnival, for example, which took place at the end of August — we’re often given an extra helping hand or two that can smooth the day and make the madness a little less difficult to deal with. Other teams of trained station staff get brought in to cover special events, alleviating the workload for us.

Among them are “ambassadors” — a role created by the company a few years ago to populate stations with much needed staff during big events. Usually the ambassadors come from TfL office jobs, and they see it as a form of “overtime” for their 9-to-5. A project manager and someone from the lifts and escalators department may have been given a tour of the station and some instructions on the basics, but that’s poor substitute for a trained member of station staff who can respond in case of an emergency.

The RMT union opposed the introduction of this role altogether. It’s not hard to see why. That said, a station filled with ambassadors is a much safer and easier work day than the average football match, where thousands of people descend on the station within a few minutes of each other, and no extra staff are allocated to deal with drunk and rowdy football fans. Understaffing is a bet being taken by the company: that nothing too serious will happen when there aren’t enough staff there to properly evacuate the station, or deal with aggressive or dangerous behaviour.