Delivering a Travel Demand Management strategy for London 2012

The challenge London faced in hosting the 2012 Olympic Games was considerable. The ambition to host the first public transport games meant that significant mode shift in background travel demand needed to be achieved to keep London moving and host a successful Games.

Steer provided significant support to the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA)/Transport for London (TfL) in the run up to the Games.

During the planning phase, our staff were seconded to help develop and implement a TDM strategy for the Games. This included developing a suite of online resources and setting up a specialist consultant’s panel through which site-specific advice projects were managed.

Five members of Steer staff were selected for this specialist panel and worked with more than 80 major businesses across the finance, legal, health, retailing, charitable and hospitality sectors to develop detailed and practical action plans that were effective in achieving travel behaviour change during Games’ time.

A key aspect of the role was to provide reassurance for businesses, helping them understand that they had an important role to play in enabling a great Games, and that there was a structured process in place and specialist staff available to help.

Successes and outcomes

The TDM strategy employed was effective in achieving significant mode shift in background travel demand:

• On average 35% of background demand changed their travel behaviour during peak periods (peaking at 45%).
• 11% of travellers continued to adopt their new travel behaviour, and 14% of Londoners had made a change to their commute as a result of the Games.

After the Games had finished, Londoners checked for travel disruption more frequently as a result of communications received in the run up to and during the Games - there was an 18% increase in checking the Transport for London website and social media channels