Briefing: Olympic Delivery Authority's 2012 transport strategy

On 27 July 2012 the opening ceremony of the Games of the 30th Olympiad will be held in London. Over the following 16 days of competition approximately 7·7 million spectators are expected to attend the events at the 33 different competition venues, with a global viewing audience of 4 billion.

The Olympic Games will be followed two weeks later by the Paralympic Games, which, while being roughly one-third the scale of the Olympic Games, is also one of the world's largest sporting events.

In terms of transportation, the games present a huge challenge; on the busiest days, around 800 000 spectators will need to be transported to venues as far north as Hampden Park in Glasgow, as far west as the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, as far south as Weymouth and Portland in Dorset and as far east as Weald County Park in Essex. The greatest concentration of activity though, will be at the Olympic Park in Stratford, east London, where around 300 000 spectators will attend every day. That is equivalent to the entire population of Cardiff descending on Stratford; or nearly four Wembley Stadiums' worth of people.

The strategy for spectator transport is based around the concept of ‘a public transport games’, with all ticketed spectators travelling by public transport, walking or cycling (Fig. 1). The only spectator parking at venues will be for blue badge holders (the parking scheme for disabled drivers and passengers). The strategy involves making best use of existing public transport services and supplementing them where necessary with enhanced service levels or temporary additional services such as park-and-ride or shuttle buses during the games.

While the vast numbers of spectators and workforce will travel to and from venues by public transport, the ‘Olympic family’ of athletes, team officials, media and personnel from a wide range of other organisations will be provided with bespoke fleets of coaches, and in some cases cars, to allow them to travel quickly, safely and securely to where they need to be to make the games happen.

In Sebastian Coe's words, ‘Athletes are here to compete not to commute’. The transport strategy for the games has the athletes at its heart. In 2012, around 18 000 athletes and team officials will be transported between the Olympic village, immediately adjacent to the Olympic Park in Stratford, and the 33 different competition venues, using a bespoke fleet of around 300 athlete coaches. A further 200 coaches will be used to ferry the world's media between venues, media accommodation and the purpose built international broadcast centre and main press centre at the Olympic Park. Separate fleets of cars and coaches will be used to transport other members of the Olympic family during the games.

Unsurprisingly, the public sector body charged with rising to the transport challenge, the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), is required to produce a statutory transport plan for the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games in association with the London 2012 organising committee (LOCOG). The transport plan or Olympic transport plan (OTP) as it is referred to in the Act, presents the vision, objectives and key strategic directions for the planning and delivery of transport for the games.

The OTP consists of strategic guidelines and operational principles for transport systems and venue transport operations, covering every mode of transport and every client group. It includes contributions from key transport delivery partners and stakeholders, including Transport for London (TfL), the Department for Transport, the Highways Agency, Network Rail, London & Continental Railways and BAA plc. As such it is a significant document, designed to be read and interpreted by numbers of parties and professions. The first formal edition was published in October 2007; a full draft appeared for consultation a year previously.1 

The transport plan began life as early as 2003, when the government announced its intention to support a bid to host the 2012 games. A group of experts and practitioners in the transport industry was formed to identify what might be required to meet the challenges of moving vast numbers of spectators and officials around London and the UK while keeping the rest of the capital and the country moving. The transport plan was then developed by Tf L and London 2012, the company set up to produce the formal bid to host the games. At the first stage of the bidding process, the ‘prequalification’ stage, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) viewed London's transport system as ‘antiquated’ and a weakness of the bid. However, by the time of the full bid submission, the ‘candidature file’ stage, transport had been turned round to one of the great strengths of London's bid. This was the result of a great deal of committed hard work and planning by the bid team including TfL and transport operators and authorities from around the country. By 6 July 2005, the day that London was awarded the 2012 games, those involved knew as much as possible had been done to convince the IOC that London and the UK could provide the transport required to host the world's greatest sporting event.

Since the ODA was created by the 2006 Olympic and Paralympic Games Act, the transport plan for the Games has developed in ever increasing detail through consultation with a wide range of stakeholders. While the Act only requires the ODA to consult formally with fewer than 20 organisations, the ODA took the opportunity to distribute the consultation draft of the transport plan to around 400 stakeholders.

In order to meet the transport challenge generated by the games, a wide range of infrastructure and operational schemes are required. Some schemes will be permanent, others will be temporary. Some will be delivered directly by the ODA, others will be implemented by transport organisations such as TfL or Network Rail. Some will be funded entirely by the ODA, others will be part-funded by the ODA or wholly funded by other organisations.

The result is a very complex package of wide ranging and diverse projects, often with interdependencies between them that need to be delivered on budget and on time - the opening ceremony of the 30th Olympic Games will be held on the 27 July 2012.

Some civil engineering projects are brand new: tunnelling twin-bore rail tunnels under the Thames to serve Woolwich Arsenal station, part funded by the ODA and opening in 2009, is an example of this.

One significant project that the ODA is delivering is the series of capacity-enhancing measures at Stratford regional station for which an engineering and project management team has been directly recruited.

During the games a wide range of operational measures will be put in place to increase public transport capacity where it is needed most. For example, the ODA is working with its transport delivery partners such as London Underground, Docklands Light Railway and train operating companies to enhance the train frequencies and/or the number of carriages per train at peak times to help accommodate the predicted demand.

In order to keep journey times, especially for the athletes and technical officials, to a minimum and ensure the reliability of the journeys, the transport strategy involves the implementation of an Olympic route network (ORN), similar to that operated at previous games. The ORN will comprise a network of roads, which will link Games family accommodation areas with all competition venues and key non-competition venues, such as Heathrow airport. A wide range of temporary traffic management measures, including dedicated lanes on some stretches of the network, alterations to traffic signal timings and temporary closures, will be used to ensure games vehicles can move quickly and reliably to and from venues.

The success of transport for the games clearly rests with the integration of a wide range of projects. The ODA transport team is already working closely with LOCOG and a large number of local authorities, transport operators and other key organisations, all essential to the successful delivery of transport for the games.

An example of this integrated approach is where the ODA is working with several working groups established in areas directly affected by the games, such as Weymouth and Portland where Dorset county council has brought together a range of key players from different local authorities, emergency services, the Highways Agency and transport operators to help London 2012 plan and deliver the games. The enthusiasm and local knowledge and expertise that such groups bring to the table is critical to getting it right first time. After all, there are no second chances with something as large and time-critical as the Olympic Games.