What an incredible gold-plated event. I think as a country England can feel proud of itself today, as the ceremonies finish. Indeed, the effort on the part of First UK Bus (spectator transport), Stagecoach (games family) and TfL, not to forget their sub-contractors, has been truly olympic in nature. As venues shifted, as numbers swelled, as up to 800,000 people needed transport each day, transport has managed to keep itself out of the news. The passenger experience could’ve ruined the games, a games built on public transport. It could even’ve simply been mediocre. But it was neither. Considerable forward planning—years of it—paid off plus, of course, publicity well in advance. Unlike at G4S, there was no need for Tim O’Toole or Brian Souter or Peter Hendy to justify their respective organisations in front of millions on TV. We didn’t need the army. There was nothing to defend. Unless you know differently.
There was tragedy in the early moments of the games that most now seem to have forgotten, so spare a thought for the cyclist and the bus driver involved in that fatal accident. Other than that, though, it has been Happy and Glorious.
Those companies subcontracting vehicles & drivers were certainly well compensated but this has brought with it some unexpected consequences. Though branding was very smartly (part) obscured, returning vehicles to local serviceable conditions may need retouching. A complete mix of drivers from across the country has meant that those whose back-home hourly rates are less favourabe, usually from up north, may feel disgruntled. And some temporary driver accommodation was perhaps not quite as good as those for the olympians themselves. But none of this will bother the public.
- First, this has been a transport showcase where people have been using public transport who might not normally do so. Usually smart buses and usually well-trained and polite, friendly & good-humoured drivers may result in people trying their bus service when they get home.
- Secondly, in spite of a 20 per cent increase in the numbers using the London underground when compared to a typical high summer, many people heeded Hendy’s advice and simply stayed away from London. This was actually noticeable. A lot more people than normal worked from home and they found, on average, that they were 12 per cent more productive. Having discovered this, will this trend now continue and grow? Might this impact positively on the number of motor vehicles on London’s streets? (It might also result in fewer passenger journeys, of course).
- Thirdly, we’re about to see a significant cascading of new vehicles as, post games, they’re allocated to home garages. These are largely B9TLs and E400s. Some people back home have temporarily had to suffer steppers or simply older vehicles but let’s hope that these temporary disbenefits have proven worth it for the new stock injection some of us reading this might expect.
20 comments:
My complaint about the Olympic transport arrangements was the complete lack of (Leyland/Volvo) Olympians!
It has indeed been a splendid spectacle in so many ways,easily surpassing my expectations, and I'm proud to have played a (very) small part in the transport provision.
The danger is that we mustn't relax and assume that the Paralympics will be a breeze. It is the second largest sports event in the world.
Agree with everything you write. The whole event has proved to be handed excellently and, for bus-related issues, there must have been an enormous amount of effort put in by Stagecoach, First, Leon Daniels etc. I'm also still amazed at the way in which the Tube and DLR coped with the additional demands.
Well done to everyone involved, at every level of every organisation.
Does anyone have a feel for how busy the bus services were? The couple of times (early evening and late afternoon) when I was around the Olympic Park the games services seem to be very lightly used ; this may not be a true representation so I would be interested to hear anyone else's experience who was better informed. Thnks
Totally agree with everything you say - except for one small thing. In the first line, shouldn't that be Great Britain ? (Particularly considering both First and Stagecoach's HQs)
@ Graham
Having undertaken P&R duties (Thurrock-Greenway Hub) as a sub contractor to First Games Transport, these services were very lightly used, averaging 1 passenger per trip during the first week and about 7 or 8 per trip this last week, but i guess better to have too many vehicles than too few.
Most people, certainly the passengers, were in up-beat mood and the operation, on the whole, seemed well organised.
@N90734
Ensignbus had a small number of Olympians on the Thurrock p&r (13) during the first week and a pair on the Herts p&r all this last week!
"Totally agree with everything you say - except for one small thing. In the first line, shouldn't that be Great Britain ?"
I think this is a "thing" with Friend Busing :-) Sometimes he uses England to mean England and at other times GB or UK.
People from the Home Nations like me just have to get used to it :-)
I don't doubt it has been hugely successful and that the operators mentioned (and others) have dedicated huge amounts of time and effort to ensuring it all worked smoothly and major congratulations are clearly due all round.
However my view observing and photographing over several days was very lightly loaded buses and a seemingly huge over-provision. Empty deckers running up and down the A12, a six-bus, five minute frequency shuttle between Canning Town and ExCeL that IMX very rarely carried anyone at all (you can walk it in ten minutes) and the total scrapping of a whole not needed park and ride site in Weymouth. That said, over-provision is obviously better than under-provision. The costs, though, must have been astronomical.
As for the legacy, the vast majority of Stagecoach vehicles already had homes to which they will return, whilst from what I've read elsewhere you can only expect new vehicles in First-land if you live in Manchester or Leeds. No doubt there will be a lot of resultant cascades of not so new buses, though, but that's not really the 'new stock injection' that's previously been touted, is it?!
STILL once its all finished then the real fun and games start with first.....
also that should have said UK or GB not England.
Yes, massive over-provision on virtually all of the spectator services from what I could see - but that must be far better than the opposite. It would have been incredibly difficult to gauge the numbers who might use public transport.
Easy to knock the servies for being empty. What would have happened do you think had they been full to bursting?
I wasn't anywhere near any of these but I expect that the demand return was greater than inbound. Coming in to the games, people are staggered. Leaving, they all want to go home at once.
Nobody's criticising. We were asked for observations. Mine at 14:51 weren't just in relation to the spectator services.
England? Surely not!
The media and competitor services seemed to vary - some were empty or lightly loaded while others were full. The internal Olympic Park services were lightly used when I attended the Park but that was a tiny snapshot of the entire operation.
The Wimbledon shuttle was packed out when I saw it despite lots of people walking and others using the tube to Southfields. Photos of the Eton Dorney shuttles that I've seen suggest they were well used. The Excel and Thurrock shuttles / park and ride seem to have been very lightly used as was the Charlton - North Greenwich shuttle operation.
Alternatively though the TfL 132 service at North Greenwich had to be double decked at short notice in order to cope and the 108 through the Blackwall Tunnel had to be baled out with First London single decks *and* Go Ahead bendy buses (shock horror). Other local routes at Stratford like the 97 saw quite a lot of use by Olympics competitors, staff and games makers. Certainly buses did not grind to a halt in East London despite the inevitable pressure on the roads.
Of course it all has to be done again for the Paralympics and it will be interesting to see if things are scaled back at all (from published plans). There are also suggestions that the numbers of mobility impaired spectators as well as competitors will create some new challenges. However I expect that has been thought through and we'll see what has been tweaked to cope with these different demands.
"England? Surely not!"
See comment at 1252.
But what about tis place called Peking? Surely it's Beijing these days?
I was involved driving on the P&R at Manchester, and it seemed over bussed at times, though very efficient at clearing the crowds rapidly when they all emerged at once at the end of the events.
I guess no one wanted to get caught out and provision was based on dealing with the worst case which, in Manchester, didn't arise. Plenty would have been said if it hadn't worked effectively.
It all worked well, everyone was good natured and friendly and all credit to those at First who organised and ran it. A pity, perhaps, that spectators didn't use P&R as much as we might have liked.
I think it shows two things, firstly that the industry can deliver, and well done to all who took part (see, I can give credit where it is due), and that you can do almost anything well with sufficient funding!
The only transport issue I had was of First Great Western not placing seat reservations on the train I was on, then not making a clear announcement with regard to whether they considered they applied or not. The usual convention is not, but the train was full of novice rail users so it led to a couple of arguments and a few swap rounds. The only other one was of train lengths not being updated in the PIS (the Swiss seem to manage pretty much 100% consistency here so why not us?)
But other than this minor irritation the industry delivered, so well done!
Neil
The P&R services up here in Newcastle were lightly used but they were delivered well by Go North East. Stagecoach Newcastle dealt brilliantly with the massive disruption the games caused, with the main bus route into the city from the west closed to all traffic for hours at a time. Stagecoach had planned a temporary diversion route to maintain timetables, only for the police and council to object AFTER the first day's operation and AFTER the temporary routes had been heavily promoted.
I think the Games services were like so many normal bus routes: quiet during the day and very busy at peak times. I've seen photos of the spectator buses with every single seat filled. It's definitely better to over-bus when the world's eyes are on you. I presume the Chinese journalist was referring to the walk from Stratford International through the Olympic Park, which probably is about 30 minutes. Shame he didn't use the bus!
I don't think Stagecoach have bought new buses for the Olympics. What they seem to have done is planned for the last two years by keeping their older buses in reserve, rather than selling them. The new buses have gone into revenue service but were temporarily replaced during the games by reserve buses. The reserve buses were well presented- clean and tidy- but really showed their age. Good planning by Stagecoach though. And presumably a lot of their reserve buses will now be getting sold to Ensign and/or the scrapyard.
To be fair, I don't think First has bought new vehicles purely for the Olympics but what they have done is hold them all (except a few used in Plymouth) back rather than put them into service. I guess that saved them reactivating a reserve fleet as Stagecoach has done but it's probably all swings and roundabouts in the end. Their contract may have required a majority of brand new vehicles of course - I don't know.
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