The world-famous Maracanã stadium was completely refurbished in preparation for the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games. The Rio State Government, owners of the stadium, wanted to ensure that accessibility to the stadium was improved, primarily from the surrounding rail and metro stations. They also wanted to improve pedestrian safety and comfort which would ensure a legacy for the investments in the project.
Steer had previously worked extensively on spectator movement with the project team responsible for the stadium design, analysing the architectural designs and providing recommendations to ensure that the designs met local regulations and international best practice for spectator safety, resulting in a complete revision of the internal crowd flow strategy.
This time, key concerns were raised regarding the safe and comfortable arrival and egress of spectators (80,000) in the surrounding area. This new commission included an in-depth diagnostical phase to identify the existing issues, barriers and opportunities. Subsequently, a pedestrian movement strategy was established for the local area and a variety of recommendations to the public realm were developed to improve pedestrian safety for all users.
Our multi-disciplinary approach enabled us to explore a variety of operational and design strategies, evaluate the cost/benefit of new infrastructure (e.g. ramps), temporary overlays (e.g. positioning of concessions), evacuation routes, landscaping proposals and the impact of these to help ensure that a real legacy, not just for spectators to the stadium, but also the local community, is provided for the city of Rio de Janeiro.
Using pedestrian microsimulation, we also analysed the spectator strategies being developed by the event organising committees to evaluate the proposals and provide recommendations to ensure safety, efficiency and coherence, principally focusing on minimising expenditure on temporary event infrastructure.
During the events, it was rewarding to observe that the majority of our recommendations were incorporated.
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