Olympic transport - latest

Over the last six months there has has been a large volume of information published about the local transport impact of hosting the Games. These pages summarise and try to make sense of this:

Hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012 will see an unprecedented demand for road space and the public transport network in London. There is a coordinated, multi-agency response to manage this demand, and to help Londoners be able to enjoy the Games (or simply get to work) without too much travel disruption. A great deal of work has taken place to model the likely impact of the Games on London’s transport systems and to plan accordingly.

‘2012 Transport’ is a catch-all term designed to capture the various strands of work being undertaken to ensure London copes with the demands placed upon it at Games-time. This page explores the more significant areas of work, their progress to date and their local impact.

Travel Demand Management

The start of 2012 sees a dramatic increase in the volume, frequency and depth of information published to help Londoners understand how they will be affected by the Games and what to do about it. This information is focused on the ‘hot spot reports’. TfL has produced a comprehensive series of documents which show the specific projected effect of the Games Opens in a new window on each station or road corridor for each day of the Games. 

Not all of London will be affected – 65 per cent of stations will see no additional waiting times, although the stations that will be affected are among London’s busiest. These include Canary Wharf, Bond Street, Bank, Canada Water, London Bridge, Liverpool Street and King’s Cross St Pancras. Similarly, around 70 per cent of the road network will be unaffected by the Games. However, some locations will be severely affected at some times. The location and time of severely affected areas will change throughout the Games. Reports for individual Underground stations and lines Opens in a new window, and specific parts of the road network Opens in a new window, can be found on the TfL website.

TfL has now downgraded its previous estimate that a 30 per cent reduction in demand will be necessary across the network. Its work with boroughs, businesses and the general public is now much more targeted towards specific local drivers and outcomes where the demand is likely to be at its highest. For example, the London Underground ‘Station Impact Summaries’ Opens in a new window show how much of the adverse impact on overcrowding can be addressed through small changes to travel times. This greater precision, together with more realistic targets for reduction in background demand, should come as some comfort to those who are trying to understand how the Games will affect them.

The London 2012 Travel Advice for Business (TAB) team has been working with large businesses, industry groups, business improvements districts and boroughs to help them to plan for the Games. These have considered how staff can travel to, and for, business, and how goods can be moved, during Games-time. The key messages have become known as ‘the four Rs’:

Reduce:

• order early and stockpile goods to reduce Games-time deliveries
• delay delivery until after Games.

Retime:

• do preventative maintenance and servicing of property and equipment ahead of summer 2012
• to a less-affected day or time
• arrange overnight or out-of-hours deliveries.

Re-route:

• change route to avoid areas affected by Games, for example alighting at Borough station instead of London Bridge, or changing at Monument rather than Bank.

Re-mode:

• revise delivery mode for the last mile of the journey
• collect product on foot from a nearby location instead of using a van.

Up to now these messages have been primarily focused on affected businesses. Messages aimed at the general travelling public will begin in April 2012.

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