Mourners sent to back of the queue (in California) as tracking system suffers early blips

Mourners hoping to see the late monarch lying in state in Westminster Hall were directed to California and then Yorkshire by the Government’s official queue tracker, it emerged on Wednesday.

Those wishing to pay their respects to Queen Elizabeth II faced a 10-mile wait through central London, with the queue swelling in number from just a handful in the morning to tens of thousands in a matter of hours.

Ministers have drawn up contingency plans that will see people turned away from Southwark Park, the end point of the organised route, to prevent the queue infrastructure from becoming overwhelmed.

On Wednesday night, civil servants at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) acknowledged that human error was to blame for their live queue tracker promoting inaccurate locations.

The queue tracker, promoted heavily through all the DCMS social media accounts, relied on a third-party website called What3words.com, which uses geographic coordinates to pinpoint a location correct to three square metres.

Mourners were given a three-word code by DCMS to copy and paste into the website, and told that this would show them the precise location of the end of the queue.

The code is updated every few minutes, to reflect the new end point of the queue – but of the first five codes published, four led to the wrong place entirely.

The initial code given by DCMS showed a location in California, followed by one in Uxbridge. Two other codes were also inaccurate, one leading to the village of Drighlington, in west Yorkshire, and the next to North Carolina.

Officials at DCMS said that the errors were down to civil servants manually typing out the codes. After realising that this approach led to typos, they moved to a new method where the codes were automatically filled in.

Government officials involved in planning the event said they consulted behavioural psychologists to try to forecast people’s patterns of movements.

But civil servants admitted that they had no firm estimate for the number of people who will be queuing, saying it is impossible to predict.

Senior Whitehall officials insisted that they are actively encouraging people to come and pay their respects but want them to be fully aware of what they will expect on arrival.

The queue route, which stretches for 10 miles, finishes at Victoria Tower Gardens, where “airport-style” security checks are carried out.

The initial 6.9 miles of the queue takes in London Bridge, Southwark and Waterloo, before finishing at Westminster.

The final stage of the queue is at Southwark Park, which is about a mile south-east of Tower Bridge. In the park, there is infrastructure for a further three miles of zig-zag queues.

The queue to see the late Queen snakes past the London Eye past the Southbank Centre, which will be staying open late over the next five days Credit: Geoff Pugh for The Telegraph

A number of organisations which are located along the route of the queue – including the Southbank Centre, National Theatre and Shakespeare’s Globe – will open their doors for extended hours to provide refreshments and comfort breaks to people queuing around the clock.

Along the way, the British Film Institute will have an outdoor screen showing archive footage of the Queen and from her reign, while the Southbank Centre will be playing a curated playlist from speakers in trees along the river.

If the full 10 miles of queue reaches capacity, the entry to the queue will be temporarily paused to prevent the queue infrastructure from becoming overwhelmed.

This means anyone who turns up at Southwark Park would be turned away and possibly told they can return later when there is more space.

The other circumstance in which people could get turned away is in the run-up to 6.30am on Monday, to make sure that everyone queuing gets to see the late Queen lie in state before the state funeral begins.

Estimated waiting times will be displayed on large screens, visible for those already in the queue, and will also be promoted on DCMS social media channels.

Once people arrive in Westminster Hall, the queue will split into two, so people can view the late Queen’s coffin from both sides. People will be expected to keep moving once they are inside, rather than stand still.

As night fell, the queue continued to swell. Westminster Hall is due to be open 24 hours a day until 6.30am on Monday, the day of the funeral Credit: AP /Bernat Armangue

For the first time this year, there will be an “accessible queue” alongside the main queue to see the late Queen lie in state.

Proof of disability will not be required to join the accessible queue, but officials are hoping they can rely on people’s goodwill not to try and take advantage of the system.

Marshalls and stewards have been instructed to proactively help people who are struggling in the queue by offering them a cup of tea or making sure they get some rest.

Marshalls have been told to take a pragmatic approach as to whether they can return to the queue or not, and perhaps invite them to join the accessible queue if appropriate.

Mourners are being issued with wristbands as they join the queue, with a colour coded system so that anyone wishing to leave can easily see which section they need to come back to on their return.

The wristband system has been designed so that people can leave the queue if they need to get some food or drink, have a brief rest or use a toilet.

Government officials believe there will be an element of self-policing for this system to work, and are relying on people making friends with people around them in the queue who will let them back in again after they have left.

More than 1,000 stewards, volunteers, marshals and police officers will be on hand at any one time to manage mourners as they make their way through London.

This includes 779 professional stewards for each 8.5 hour shift, as well as 100 civil servant volunteer marshals, 40 scouts and 30 members of the first aid nursing yeomanry.

The welfare of those waiting in line will be attended to by 10 members of the Red Cross per shift, as well as 30 multi-faith pastors co-ordinated by Lambeth Palace.

There will also be six Samaritans on hand and Salvation Army volunteers providing tea and biscuits at Waterloo as people walk to the queue.

A total of 1,500 military personnel will be stationed around London to bolster crowd control efforts, and 600 St Johns ambulance volunteers in both the capital and Windsor.

Mourners will have access to 500 portaloos along the route of the queue and eight St Johns Ambulance first aid stations.

A DCMS spokesman said: “We want to help as many people as possible pay their respects to Her Majesty the Queen and are keeping thousands of mourners updated on the lying in state queue location through innovative means, including a specially designed live online tracker.

“There was an issue with the locations being shared using what3words because of a minor error. Within a few minutes of being notified, we fixed the glitch and the system is now functioning correctly.”