Failure Knowledge Database / 100 Selected Cases

Closure of Millennium Bridge
June 12, 2000 at the Millennium Bridge, London, UK
Masayuki Nakao (Institute of Engineering Innovation, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo)
The Millennium Bridge, built to commemorate the arrival of 2000, opened as a new crossing over the Thames.
People flocked to cross this bridge, however, the pedestrians caused the bridge to sway and when the amplitude
reached several centimeters it wa s closed du e to th e danger j ust two days aft er ope ning. Th e cause wasinsufficient stiffness, especially in the lateral direction.
1. EventThe Millen nium B ridge, th e £18.2 million (approximately 3 .3 billion y en) p roject bu ilt to commemorate
the arrival of 2000, opened on June 10, 2000 as London’s new Thames footbridge crossing. People flocked
to cross this br idge, however, the pedestrians caused the br idge to sway and when the amplitude reachedseveral centimeters it was c losed due to the danger just two days after opening. The cause was insufficient
stiffness, especially in the lateral direction.
2. Course
On June 10, 2000, the Millennium Bridge opened to the public as a new Thames crossing linking the Cityof Lo ndon at S t. P aul’s Cat hedral wit h the Tate M odern Ga llery at Bankside. An est imated 80, 000 to
100,000 people crossed the bridge on the opening day to visit the new bridge and the Tate Modern Gallery.
As large crowds walked across the bridge, it started swaying and wobbling side to side (70 mm at most) in
the wind so violently that some clung on to the side of the bridge and others reported feeling sick. No limit
was imposed on the number of pedestrians allowed to cross the bridge at that time.
Because of safety concerns, the Millennium Bridge was closed on June 12, just two days after opening.
After cause analysis and countermeasure in place, the bridge re-opened on February 22, 2002.
3. Cause
Mechanism that caused the lateral swaying follows:
A pedestrian walk generates a sideways load (25 N per person) with every step (Figure 1).
When a large number of the people happen to take the same step at the same time, the bridge sways a little.
The pedestrians then walk in sink with the swaying and the effect multiplied to produce the large swaying.

1Failure Knowledge Database / 100 Selected Cases

Figure 1. Vertical and Sideways Loads [1]While the Millennium Bridge was a beau tiful design, however, it lacked the proper stiffness in the lateral
direction.
The designin g co mpany, Arup Gr oup, Ltd. l ater di scovered th at o ther bridg es w ith le ss than 1.3 Hz o fnatural fr equency co uld sw ay side ways with w alkers in ex cess of certai n limits. Th ey foun d videotape
showing the 1975 sway ing o f Auck land Harbo ur Road Br idge that had a co mpletely di fferent struc turefrom the Mil lennium Br idges. The sy nchronized f ootfall ef fect o n la teral f orces had no t been w idely
published and thus bridge experts had not been aware of it. This may mean that vertical forces and motion
induced b y footfalls have b een w ell k nown a nd documented b ut the l ateral sw aying is taken as a trivial
phenomenon and h as not m ade it to th e b uilding codes. Detai ls are un known. I have addressed this toProfessor Y ozo Fujino of Tokyo University who was ap pointed as a member of the i nvestigationcommission. A non-disclosure agreement, however, held him from giving me any information
4. Immediate Action
Officials first tried to limit the number of pedestrians on the br idge, but it di d not help reducing the lateralswaying. I n order to e nsure pub lic saf ety, the of ficials c losed the br idge on June 12 and s tarted theinvestigation to identify the cause. The designer Arup formed the project for the investigation.

5. Countermeasure
In order to r educe the later al movement, th e proj ect concluded that the br idge needed t o e ither abs orb
pedestrians’ footsteps with dash pots or have its structure stiffened so the brid ge would not resonate with2

Failure Knowledge Database / 100 Selected Cases
the p edestrian’s f ootsteps. Arup de cided to da mpen the s hock f rom the pedestrian’s fo otsteps, be cause
laterally stiffening the bridge would change the bridge’s appearance.
Two forms of passive dampening were employed on the Millennium Bridge. (Figure 2): one for absorbing
the most of the lateral forces created by pedestrians, and the another one for absorbing vertical forces.

Figure 2. Cross-section of Millennium Bridge [3]Fall of suspension bridges were reported at the Irwin River in 1831 in the suburbs of Manchester, U.K. andat the Maine River in 1850 in Un-juor, France. Both incidents were ca used by mar ching so ldiers on t hebridge. (A. Sutcliffe, et al., 1972, Episode Science IV, Gendai Kyoyo Bunko, Shakai Shisousha.)
The corrections cost £5 million (approximately 0.9 billion yen).
With corrections in place, more than 2000 people walked across the bridge to test its movement. The bridge
reopened on February 22, 2002.
6. Summary
The Millennium Bridge was designed by Arup Group, Ltd. of the U.K., one of the leading structural design
consultants in the wor ld. Even su ch a professional en gineering t eam made a d esign error. Arup r eported
this incident and their findings in detail on their web site. The pages have descriptions that appear to avoid
the responsibility by pointi ng t o si milar events other than the Millennium Bridge, howev er, the i ncident
teaches about a past failure with a public construction and lots of lessons that we can see through it.
7. Knowledge(1) Resonance can easily destroy the structures and machines.
(2) Accidents easily happen when conditions exceed what we have planned.
(3) Development of novel products requires thorough research of related information and analysis.
3Failure Knowledge Database / 100 Selected Cases

8. Background
The U.K. h ad three projects to commemorate the ar rival of 2000, in cluding the L ondon Ey e ( sometimes
called the Millennium Wheel), the Millennium Dome and the Millennium Bridge. The Mil lennium Domeattracted small number of people with poor planning and the L ondon Eye project kept having troubles one
after another. The public had great expectations for the last Millennium Bridge.
The design of the bridge was a competition winner by the famous architect Foster and Sir Anthony Caro ofsculptures. The des ign had horizontal cables that held the girders. It was a light weighted, transparent andnoble design with lots of urban taste. It was the first new bridge across the Thames in London in 108 years
since the Tower Bridge in 1894.
References[1] Arup Group Ltd., http://www.arup.com/millenniumbridge/[2] Yamada Structural Design Office, http://homepage2.nifty.com/y-structure/index.html[3] Mas ayuki Nakao (2005) 1000 Scenarios of Failure, Morikita Shuppan Co., Ltd.

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