Delivering London 2012: Transport demand forecasting

This paper describes the strategies and assumptions made in modelling the effects of holding the world's biggest sporting event in one of the world's major cities and how the work informed the development and implementation of the Olympic transport plan. Ten million ticket holders would need to travel safely, efficiently and in time to 29 Olympic venues, utilising all available modes of transport, while residents, workers, visitors and tourists needed to be able to continue to travel around London as normal. Consequently, transport was an important and integral part of the planning for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games as far back as 2003 during the bid phase. Between 2003 and 2005 a bid company worked with Transport for London to develop the overall transport strategies for the games. By the time of the bid submission, transport strategies were in place to cover major transport infrastructure projects and the concept of the Olympic Route Network linking sports venues with accommodation for athletes, officials the media and sponsors. When London was confirmed as the host city for the London 2012 Games, this work continued with the development and implementation of the full Olympic transport plan for the event. A central tool in the development of the Olympic transport plan was travel demand forecasting, combining tried and tested methodologies and modelling tools with the latest innovations and adapting existing tools where necessary to best fit the uncertainties associated with some elements of the games.