Middlesbrough Bus Station, Middlesbrough, UK
Middlesbrough Bus Station is located in the middle of Middlesbrough Town Centre and enjoys 30,000 travellers passing through the station on a daily basis. For the benefit and safety of passengers Middlesbrough Council called in specialist AV installer Riverside Leisure Promotions Ltd to design an audio system to provide public information messaging, background music and to provide assistance with public-safety announcements.
The brief from Middlesbrough Council included improving intelligibility of public announcements across eight different audio zones within the bus station including the main shopping concourse, the north and south passenger /bus platforms, the National Express Lounge, Drivers Areas, Travel Offices, Corridors and Plant Rooms. With the assistance of Bose Professional and commercial audio distributor Batmink Distribution all requirements were met in the system design and delivery of the project was made on time.
Bose loudspeakers are strategically mounted to provide even audio coverage throughout the bus station enabling messaging and background music to be heard clearly by passengers waiting for buses and passing through the bus station. Utilising Cloud CXV-425 four-channel amplifiers fitted with Bose Equalisation cards 12 channels of 250W 100V amplification are provided across eight zones. A Cloud Z8 MKII Zone-Mixer at the heart of the system provides music and message playback from a number of sound sources but also accepts safety and automated general announcements from a Bosch messaging system triggered via a relay/key switch system. The Bosch messaging system also activates the Music Mute function of the Cloud Z8 MKII to ensure important safety announcements are heard. In addition three Cloud PM-8 paging microphones were deployed to allow communication on a zone by zone basis between the CCTV control room, the Arriva travel office and the bus station security office.
Grant Thomas of Batmink Distribution explained 'We have a very well established working relationship with Riverside Leisure and were more than happy to provide the equipment required for Middlebrough Bus Station. Our sales team is often asked to help specify products for projects such as this, although in this instance Andy Penketh from Riverside simply provided us with a wish list of his requirements. It was a pleasure to be involved with this project and I'm sure the newly installed audio system will provide high quality music production, together with the clarity required for public announcement'.
Andy Penketh from Riverside Leisure added ‘ We used Cloud Electronics products for this project because of the reputation for reliability, performance and the 5-Year warranty. The user interface is also straightforward which means you do not have to be an audio genius to operate the system. The system at Middlesbrough Bus Station is expected to last for a number of years, it is important it can be operated by the bus-station staff now and in the future.’
The installation of the new audio system took place over eight weeks with more than 2.5km of signal cabling installed by the Riverside Leisure team. Often works were carried out during the later part of the day and late into the night to avoid the high volumes of passengers passing through the bus station each day.