This diagram shows the flow of people through the site using the floor plan created previously.
This is a floor plan of the bus station, which we will use to visualise the flow of people.
As we have previously mentioned in this study, the bus station is a very busy place. There are a few reasons for this, mainly because people need busses to travel and Bretonside bus station is the heart of the Plymouth bus network. Currently the Plymouth bus network has over 550 busses operating its 86 major destinations. These destinations include Exeter and Derriford hospital. Most of these bus services operate out of the Bretonside bus station. Such a high amount of services operating out of one place means that, that place will get very busy during the services operating hours.
This leads me onto my first point, to monitor the flocking of people at Bretonside bus station you simply have to look at when there are the most bus services in the area. These times are pretty obvious, 8am to 9.30am to capture the morning work rush, and 3.30pm to 6pm to capture the afternoon work rush. At these times the bus station is inhabited with many different types of people, from students to old age pensioners.
There are another couple examples of when the bus station gets busy due to flocking of people. The first of these examples is late at night, this is when the white rabbit closes, and people leave the club. They then hang around in the bus station talking for about 10 minutes. These people soon leave the bus station though.
Another example can be either early in the morning, before the rush, or late at night, after the rush. These two different times are normally when the London to Plymouth coaches get in, one example of the coaches that are regularly full is the “Megabus”. When the people leave the coaches, there are quite a few people that still hang around waiting for lifts etc.
The flocking of busses are quite easy to map, they are almost exactly the same as when the people flock to the bus station. Mainly at the rush hour times though. Obviously the busses don’t operate during the times the white rabbit is open. There is one difference between the busses and the people, and that is that early in the morning the busses go there as their first stops, however at the time they start the people aren’t really in Plymouth City centre compared to later in the day.
Brief:
“Working in pairs, using your workbooks as the primary tool of investigation, choose a ’site’ within a 2 mile radius of the University. Document the site considering a mix of drawing styles, notation techniques, contemporary and historical data, reportage, existing and fictitious narratives, coincidences, lies, etc… all woven into a complex and sustainable narrative map of the environment. This project will form the groundwork for the mapping projects latter in the module and ensure that you have no excuse for not buying and using your workbook. In the following weeks sessions you will be (randomly) expected to tell your narrative through your workbooks and a composite map (edited workbook material compiled into one map) [ie, individual members workbooks and a single group map].”
Introduction to our project
For our IDAT101 project, we had to choose an area within Plymouth, and create a case study. My group consists of me, Luke Best and Scott Penhaligon. Originally we were meant to be in pairs but Scott joined us later on.
For our study we decided to choose the Bretonside Bus Station in Plymouth.
There were a few reasons we decided to study this area. The first was because we knew how busy the station was throughout the day and how many people used the services there. This then meant that we could study the different amounts of people that use the station. As well as it being busy, it is an unusual place because it is remarkably different at different times of day. Being there in the daytime is completely different from being that at night. During the day it seems like a normal bus station with other vendors selling their goods next to it. However at night time the bus station bare hardly any resemblance to the daytime. Being there at night makes u feel unsafe and constantly looking over your shoulder.
Another reason we chose to study the bus station was because of its importance to Plymouth and the condition of it. It is nearly central in Plymouth, and is a vital part in Plymouth’s public services. However for such a vital place, it is in need of some serious repair, just walking around in it and you can see the graffiti on the walls and rubbish on the floor. We will examine this is in more detail and provide some ideas on how to improve the station.
In our previous visits to the bus station, we had noticed how different the people that uses the station are and how they don’t really mix. During the day you have your “normal” people, the type of people that just use the bus station for busses, the obvious use of a bus station. At night the whole atmosphere changes, from people going there to leave Plymouth city centre, to people going there to enjoy the actual station. There are 2 main types of people that use the bus station at night; they are two very different types of people. The first are the “clubbers” who go to the bus station to visit the White Rabbit, an alternative music club that regularly houses live music. The other type of people that visit the bus station at night are the “homeless” people; they visit it to use it as a place to sleep and keep warm & dry at night.
This difference in people and the way they use the bus station turns something that from the outside looks like a boring, standard place into an exceptional place to study and one of the more interesting places in the city.
We hope you enjoy our study of the bus station.
To access the bus station, you have to enter and travel through the subway, as the station is located on a lower level
than the main town.
The subway contains lots of different shops, like fast food, a news kiosk, casino and nightclub/bar.
These places effect the way people interact with the site, and creates an interesting comparison between different
times of day.
The main things I will look at are:
Effect of the shops
Sound levels
Amount/flow of people
Peoples view of the place at different times of day
The effect of shops:
The subway has many different shops, and this has a big effect on people as they travel through the space.
For example, at lunch time, the cafe, takeaway food and news kiosks get very busy. Large groups of people gather
around these spaces and queue.
However, these places are closed in the night, but other places are then open, such as the casino and on certain
nights, the White Rabbit bar.
This not only affects the amount of people, but the type of person as well.
So you will mainly get workers and older people traveling through the station in the day, and at night,
students going to the White rabbit, and older men using the casino.
The amount and flow of people:
Here you can see similar positions photographed at day and night.
It is a lot quieter here at night, but there are occassionally flurrys of people getting off/on buses.
What is interesting between the 2 times of day is that people do not seem to hang around at night. The flow of people is much more
direct than it is in the day. People seem to drift in and out throughout the day at a regular speed, but at night people will walk straight
through and not hang around. This probably has something to do with the image and personal views of the site at night, which I will talk
about in a bit.
The exact times of day also have an effect on the amount of people.
During our investigations of the site, we made these rough generalizations of the sort of people that use the space at certain times of day.
6am-9am: Very quiet, staff and commuters generally make up the amount of people
9am-11am: Usually older folk come in and leave around this time
11am-12pm: The station becomes very busy, with all sorts of people using the site.
12pm-1pm: The food facilites of the station start attracting queues and large groups of people
1pm-3pm: Becomes quieter after the rush of lunchtime
3pm-5pm: Lots of School children return from school on the bus
5pm-6pm: Becomes very busy again, with mainly commuters returning from work.
7pm-10pm: Station becomes very quiet, with the odd flock of people travelling through.
10pm-12am: Occasional buses and groups of people
12am - 6am: No buses run at these times so it is very quiet.
This diagram shows pictures taken during the recording of sound, aligned with the correct positions over the sound timeline.
The image size relates to the amount of noise happening at that time.
