Metro Family Fun Day

On Saturday 23 July, members of the Midland Metro Alliance joined the Marketing Team from the West Midlands Combined Authority for an event to celebrate the opening of the Birmingham City Centre extension. Held at Martineau Place, the event also worked hard to bring increased footfall to an area that has suffered disruption as part of the Metro works, thereby helping us to maintain positive relationships with important business stakeholders.

As well as giving out a range of information and ticketing offers to would be users of the existing line, the event gave us the opportunity to explain how the City Centre extension fits into the wider programme of Midland Metro development to which the Midland Metro Alliance is pivotal.

In total, over 100 individuals attended the event, giving us the chance to raise the profile of the Midland Metro within the area that it serves. As well as games of giant Jenga and Connect 4, the piece de resistance was having use of the ‘Tram Simulator’. Designed by Tram Pro as a tool to train drivers of the route before they begin ‘in-cab training’, this simulator gave a number of individuals the opportunity to be a ‘tram driver for the day’, and to drive the Metro between St Pauls and Grand Central, with the prize at stake being a £50 House of Fraser voucher.

After some very heated competition, the winner was a five year old who completed the run with no mistakes in 434 seconds. Given that the run completed by a tram driver took a total of 336 seconds, this shows that we have a very promising pool of future tram drivers to leave the system in safe hands for years to come.

metro family fun day