London's Olympic Legacy

By Ben Plowden

Hosting the Olympic Games can make or break a city's reputation, either by leaving behind wildly expensive but mostly abandoned venues (this was Athens's problem after the 2004 Games) or failing to meet the infrastructure needs — particularly transportation — of the event itself, which is what happened in Atlanta in 1996.

Get these things wrong and you do so in full view of the media and billions of people. Get it right and you showcase the host city's planning and operational skills to the world. In so many ways, London got it right, and is still reaping the benefits of its careful planning.

The International Olympic Committee announcement on July 6, 2005, that London would host the 2012 Olympics was greeted with jubilation, tempered by terrorist attacks on the transport system the very next day. Then came the sober realization of the challenge ahead.

Transport for London — which manages the day-to-day operation of the city's public transport and roads — had been in existence since only 2000. The Games would be a major test of the organization's planning and operational abilities — and its wider resilience.

Over the six weeks of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the city's transport system needed to ensure the timely travels of some 22,000 athletes and team members; 6,000 officials; 26,000 members of the media; and nearly 10 million ticketed spectators, while the people living and working in London carried on with everyday life. A key first step was using detailed analysis to identify hotspots in the system for each day of the Games and the capacity increases that were needed.

Since the Atlanta Games, the IOC has required host cities to provide an Olympic Route Network on the city's streets so that the athletes, officials, and the media can get to venues within guaranteed journey times, often within dedicated Games Lanes by car, van, or bus. Otherwise, apart from spectators with mobility impairments, the 2012 Olympics were meant to be car-free.

Indeed, the 2012 Olympics created significant extra demand on London's public transport system, with ridership up by more than 50 percent on some modes. Substantial capacity increases were made at the multimodal stations next to the Olympic Park, and TfL doubled the capacity on Overground services running into Stratford, where Olympic Park is. On the Jubilee Line of the underground, capacity was increased by a third, and on the DLR (Docklands Light Railway) it went up by half.

A key planning insight was the critical role of walking as part of the transport system's overall resilience. Distances are relatively short in central London, and slightly longer walks would allow people to avoid the most crowded stations and lines. Millions of detailed walking maps were handed out. (Download the full map at content.tfl.gov. uk/walking-tube-map.pdf.)

The "Get Ahead of the Games" campaign on TfL's website showed the stations and roads that would be busiest in half-hour slots. Briefings went out twice daily, and real-time communication flew over Twitter and text. A comprehensive wayfinding system and thousands of volunteers kept things moving and made visitors feel welcome.

Gold medals all around

The London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics were, according to most observers, a huge success. The transport system worked successfully and smoothly. While busy, public transit was so reliable that a number of Olympic athletes used it to travel to and from their events. About 30 percent of Londoners changed their normal travel behavior — thanks to an 18-month travel demand management campaign launched before the Games — and a fifth of freight deliveries took place in a different way.

The Games taught us some important lessons about how to improve the resilience of London's transportation system:

PLAN AHEAD! Long-term planning, now an integral part of TfL's processes, helps to meet the challenges of continued population and employment growth — and potential extreme weather events.

SUPPORT SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT. To relieve congestion, cut emissions, and improve health, major investment continues in London, including new rail capacity, London Underground upgrades, growth in the bus network, more walkable public spaces, and $1 billion in cycling infrastructure spending.

OPTIMIZE ROAD USE. The $6 billion Roads Modernization Plan gets the best possible use out of the existing network with state-of-the-art traffic signaling technology, real-time traffic management, and enhanced incident response capability.

INTEGRATE ALL MODES OF TRANSPORT. Services are planned and operated as a single system, giving customers a consistent level of service. "Soft" assets, such as behavioral campaigns and two-way communication with users, complement the hard infrastructure.

COMMUNICATE. The TfL website now has 10 million hits a month and over two million Twitter followers. Valuable input comes from customer tweets, cameras on the road network, ticketing activities, and real-time traffic data.

SUPPORT FREIGHT AND LOGISTICS. TfL works closely with freight and logistics operators on a wide range of issues including casualty reduction, nonpeak hour deliveries, consolidation, and adoption of low-emission vehicles.

The 2012 Summer Olympics gave a great boost to the city's reputation. The successful operation of the transport system was a key part of that achievement, and the result is a resilient transport system able to meet the challenges of the future.

Ben Plowden is director of strategy and planning at Transport for London. This article was produced as part of the Island Press Urban Resilience Project, with support from The Kresge Foundation and The JPB Foundation.