On board the city's 'Starship Enterprise' as close to a million people flood streets

WITH rows of desks situated in front of a digital clock and a bank of a dozen screens, it almost resembles the inside of Star Trek's Starship Enterprise.

- CHRIS SLATER

Rather than visitors from other galaxies, this is where the people inside will control the movements of the almost a million people set to flood into the city centre this weekend.

As the woman in charge tells me, 'no one knows we're here.' Yet what they do behind the scenes has a huge impact on the hundreds of thousands of people every day.

This is the Control Centre, a small room tucked inside Transport for Greater Manchester's offices next to Piccadilly Station.

It contains around 15 to 20 TfGM staff who are glued to and constantly reacting to what is on the screens, which are beaming CCTV images and data from key junctions and transport interchanges across the city centre and beyond.

They look out for incidents as they happen and monitor traffic flows.

If needed, they can change the timings of traffic lights to relieve congestion with just the touch of a few buttons.

They are also keeping an eye on bus, tram and train arrivals, helped by colleagues from bus companies and the police who are also stationed here, as well as relaying information to the public via digital road signs, the Metrolink departure boards and social media.

Since 2018 it has been manned 24/7 and Maggie Carter, TfGM's head of network development, tells the M.E.N. that they are well used to managing big events and big influxes of people.

But, even by their standards, this is going to be a mega weekend.

Yesterday was Black Friday, a day marked by big discounts from high street stores and which now leads into what has become the busiest shopping weekend of the year.