Information for businesses
Hundreds of thousands of visitors will travel to London to experience the spectacle of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, creating previously unseen demands on the capital’s roads and public transport systems. The potential impact on business is significant and organisations need to start planning now to ensure they continue to operate smoothly during the 90 days of the Games.
Travel Advice for Business
The ODA has created the Travel Advice for Business programme to encourage and enable the business community to minimise the impact of its operations on travel and transport during the Games. Extensive research has been used to identify travel hotspots created through the combination of Games related and normal London traffic, and this programme is one facet of London 2012’s work to mitigate these impacts and create space on the transport system. The London Business Network recently hosted an event to provide further information on the Travel Advice for Business services and expected travel impacts. Webcasts from this event are available to view online.
A toolkit is also available from the ODA to help businesses understand the effect Games time travel disruptions may have on their businesses and develop plans to mitigate those effects. The toolkit includes:
- 22 maps detailing anticipated hot-spots on the underground and road networks;
- Dates and venues of Olympic events and dates and venues of Paralympic events;
- Factsheets on how deliveries to you business might be effected and
- Information on how smaller businesses may be effected.
Olympic and Paralympic Route Network
Members of the ‘Games Family’ (Athletes, Officials and the Media) will travel to and from Games events on an Olympic Route Network (ORN). The ORN will consist of existing roads around London and the UK. It will link all competition venues and key accommodation hubs. A smaller version of the ORN will form a Paralympic Route Network (PRN) to be used during the Paralympic Games.
The ORN and PRN will only affect about 2% of London’s roads and will still be open to general traffic. However businesses should familiarise themselves with the route networks as there will be some changes in order to make sure that LOCOG client groups can be moved safely, quickly and reliably between the locations where they will live, train, compete and work during the Games. In particular, Temporary Games Lanes, only accessible to Games Family and on-call emergency vehicles, will be introduced on half of the ORN/PRN where there is sufficient road space. These will operate on offside lanes during certain hours, while nearside lanes and some bus lanes will be open for general traffic.
There will also be some temporary changes along the routes, including:
- Changes to traffic signal timings
- Restricted turns
- Suspension of parking or loading bays
- Suspension of some pedestrian crossings
The chosen route in London was confirmed after a three month public consultation led by the Department for Transport (DfT) in 2009. Core, venue-specific, training venue and alternative routes in their anticipated form can be viewed online.
Transport for London recently completed four phases of engagement with businesses to create more detailed plans for sections of the route. A statutory consultation of the final plans will take place later in the fall.
The Olympic and Paralympic Timetable
London 2012 are also working closely with TfL, Network Rail and other transport providers to ensure that public transport can meet the needs of spectators and residents alike. An Olympic and Paralympic timetable is currently being drawn up to increase the number and frequency of services. Improvements include nearly 4,000 additional train services running during the Olympic and Paralympic Games, with services boosted to venue cities and on main lines across the country, while a number of additional early trains will run, at full-length, from major cities to ensure spectators can reach London in time for events with morning start times.
There will also be a significant number of additional late-night services for spectators to get home after events. For example, last service from London to Exeter leaves at 12.30am, while the last services to Oxford and Manchester Piccadilly will be leaving at 1.30am.
The Tube will also run around an hour later than normal during the Games with extra services running later in the evening on the Games’ busiest days. This will see the last trains leaving the Olympic Park at around 1.30am and central London around 2.00am.
Network Rail has suspended all disruptive engineering works on rail routes serving Olympic venues from the end of June 2012 until the end of the Games. Transport for London is also suspending all planned weekend engineering closures on the Tube network during the summer of 2012.
