TfL Corporate Archives

‘EVERY EVENT MATTERS’ Delivering the Greatest Shows on Earth

T fL C orporate Archives is part of Information G overnance, G eneral C ouns el

TfL Corporate Archives

The TfL Corporate Archives acts as the custodian of the corporate memory of TfL and

its predecessors, responsible for collecting, conserving, maintaining and providing access to the historical archives of the organisation. These

archives chart the development of the organisation and the decision making processes. The Archives provides advice and assistance to researchers from both within and outside of the business and seeks to promote the archive to as

wide an audience as possible, while actively collecting both physical and digital material and

adding personal stories to the archive. The Archives are part of Information Governance, within General Counsel.

• “Every Event Matters” is intended as an introduction to the role of TfL and its predecessors in planning and delivering major events in the capital.

• The following pages highlight key documents arranged according to theme, as well as providing further brief information. These can be used as a starting point for further research if desired

• This document is adapted from a guide that originally accompanied an internal exhibition

Royal Weddings

• Whenever a member of the Royal Family gets married it is a big occasion attracting interest from around the world. London has seen 9 major royal weddings since 1900: Princess Mary in 1922, Prince Albert in 1923, Prince George in 1934, Prince Henry in 1935, Princess Elizabeth in 1947, Princess Anne in 1973, Prince Charles in 1981, Prince Andrew in 1986, and Prince William in 2011. All were grand affairs that involved careful planning and execution. However, those that attract the most interest and therefore require the most planning are the weddings of royals who are directly in line to the throne. Since 1900, London has seen 3 of these events (when the future King George VI was married in 1923 he was still Prince Albert and it was his brother, Edward, who was the direct heir): Princess Elizabeth in 1947, Prince Charles in 1981, and Prince William in 2011.

• Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth II) married Philip Mountbatten at Westminster Abbey on 20 November 1947. The event was broadcast on BBC radio to a worldwide audience of 200 million people. Surprisingly the Corporate Archives holds no material relating to the wedding. This is very strange but is perhaps slightly indicative of the prevailing mood of austerity at the time. Britain was only recently entering post-war austerity and by all accounts, whilst still a spectacle, the wedding was not the overwhelming display of pageantry and luxury that it may have been. Indeed, the Queen even had to use clothing ration coupons to purchase the material for her wedding dress – though she was assisted by a gift of 200 extra coupons from the government.

Royal Weddings

• By 1981 the world had gone colour, worldwide communications were commonplace, commercialism was increasing, and publicity was becoming an artform. Prince Charles’s wedding to the beautiful Lady Diana was billed as a ‘fairy tale wedding’ and all involved knew that the estimated global television audience of 750 million would be supplemented by huge crowds on the streets of London.

• In March 1981 the London Transport Group Marketing Director submitted a paper to the Chairman’s meeting outlining some ways in which London Transport could capitalize on the event. The recommendations consisted of: a Royal Wedding Tour, a special souvenir ticket to be known as the Royal Warrant, a map of the

processional route, a poster featuring the map and the ticket, and advertising space on 8 special Wedding Present Buses. • London’s next mammoth royal celebration came on 29 April 2011 with the wedding of Prince William to LT001670/938

Catherine Middleton. As both bride and groom arrived at the ceremony by car and the processional route in carriages was minimal, there was a reduced need for station closures and bus redirections. However, 1 million people still managed to line the route between Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace so road closure advice was still issued.

Coronations

• Royal coronations are a key major event in London with new Kings and Queens ceremoniously crowned at Westminster Abbey for the last 1000 years. Coronations attract millions of people to London all wishing to experience the celebrations first hand. Transport for London (TfL) and its predecessor companies plan extensively for such an event to ensure the safety and enjoyment of spectators and staff.

• King Edward VII (1841–1910) was crowned on 9 August 1902. Troops from India and the British Colonies travelled to London to march in the royal procession and to join in with the coronation celebrations. The Metropolitan Railway was responsible for the conveyance of troops and their horses. Troops were offered cheaper fares if in uniform and when they produced a card voucher created by the Metropolitan Railway. They were accommodated at a military camp in Kensington Gardens which was open to the public as a visitor attraction. The Metropolitan Railway provided regular train services to Bayswater Station to transport visitors to this location.

• The Central London Railway produced a souvenir guide to commemorate the coronation of King George V (1865-1936) held on the 22 June 1911. The guide provided visitors with travel information and a summary of various London attractions.

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Coronations

• The coronation of King George VI (1895-1952) was held on the 12 May 1937. To serve the large amount of spectators expected to the event, the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) devised a plan to provide all-night buses and trains which spanned a 46-hour continuous service – the first ever all-night service put on by the organisation. Whilst selected stations were open all night, others which lay on the processional route were closed.

• Travel information was collated in a folder map which was distributed to the public. Extra portable ticket machines, additional gates, and barriers were set up to control passenger traffic and a system of bells and telephones installed to facilitate communication between platform and ticket hall.

• One of the main challenges faced by the LPTB was the conveyance of 23,000 London school children to Victoria Embankment to view the royal procession. A total of 40,000 children were planned to assemble on the area, with LPTB carrying 10,000 by bus and 13,000 by rail.

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Coronations

• Queen Elizabeth II (1926-) was crowned on the 2 June 1953. London Transport Executive (LTE) started planning for the event months in advance; special road and rail timetables were drawn up as well as arrangements made to staff the intensive services. Police requested that spectators should be in their places early in the morning, which dictated many of the services proposed. Selected train services operated between 3am and 5am in order to transport spectators to their chosen view point along the procession route.

• Keeping in line with the majestic celebrations, LTE spent 18 months prior to the coronation redecorating 60 stations to exhibit a “bright, fresh appearance” to spectators. Station canopies in the coronation area were decorated with coloured draping, bunting and flowers which included 6,000 geraniums to be arranged in special displays, with reds, whites and blues dominating the colour scheme.

• In addition to LTE’s decorations, Government and public buildings were also flood-lit as a celebratory symbol. Viewing this to be a marketable opportunity, LTE hosted different bus and coach tours which operated day and night from suburbia and central London. The tours “captured the imagination of the public” who were offered a “grandstand view” of the decorations and flood-lit buildings along the procession route and coronation area. Thousands of spectators turned up to secure a spot.

Jubilees

• Royal Jubilees celebrate a significant achievement in the reign of a British monarch. Transport for London (TfL) and its predecessor companies have been required to extensively prepare and execute alternative travel arrangements for people visiting from all over the world to witness this rare occasion.

• King George V’s (1865-1936) Silver Jubilee celebrations took place between the 6th and the 12th May 1935. London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) stated that no occasion could “produce any parallel to the Silver Jubilee celebrations of May” as railway traffic reached “unusual proportions”.

• All underground stations remained opened on Jubilee Day with increased services running.

• St James’s Park and Hyde Park were key destinations for visitors. St James’s Park Station saw 1,241 trains operating. Additionally, Hyde Park Corner Station was exceptionally busy as the Park was open throughout the night on the King’s instruction. Charing Cross Station was forced to close at intermittent periods due to overcrowding as spectators flocked to see the return procession.

• LTPB carried 1,939,000 passengers on six underground lines on Jubilee Day, an increase of 30% from an ordinary day, with trains running for a total of 603,993 miles. According to a thank you note to staff written by LTPB Chairman Lord Ashfield, the number of passengers carried across the network on the heaviest traffic days was 36 million.

Jubilees

• Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee celebrations took place in London at the beginning of June 1977. London Transport (LT) launched 25 silver buses as its contribution to the celebrations. Acknowledging the Queen’s request to avoid “excessive public expenditure” over the Jubilee period, LT’s Design Committee invited external advertisers to submit designs for the buses which would cover the cost of the project. An advertising brief was proposed by the Committee; the submitted designs should relate to each other to form a coherent display, the colour schemes should match the ‘silver bus’ livery and the theme of the adverts should correlate to the royal occasion.

• To add prestige to the project, it was proposed that a person having royal connections should be associated with the judging of designs submitted and the selection of the final 25 advertisers. The Design Committee approached Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester (1944-) who accepted the offer and was presented with the designs at a private meeting at 55 Broadway. Successful applicants included Woolworths, Air Jamaica and Heinz.

• The silver buses were launched at the Easter Parade at Battersea Park on 10 April 1977 and were officially introduced into service the next day. The buses operated for up to seven months on three central London routes. LT001637/003

Jubilees

• Queen Elizabeth II’s (1926-) Golden Jubilee was held over an extended bank holiday weekend on the 1 – 4 June 2002. As well as the Royal procession, several large-scale events were planned to mark the occasion including a music concert at Buckingham Palace Gardens, a firework display at Green Park and Trafalgar Square and a Notting Hill Carnival recreation down The Mall which involved 20,000 people alone. TfL began planning for the event a year in advance, working out maximum station capacities per hour to ensure that the surrounding underground stations could cope with the high volume of passengers.

• One hundred current and retired TfL employees were given the opportunity to participate in The Services Parade on the 4 June 2002. They were required to march down the Mall in front of 14 vehicles including two gold Routemaster buses dating from the late 1950’s and a gold taxi dated 1952.

• TfL employees who worked as part of the Golden Jubilee Weekend Project to deliver transport services were nominated for ‘Achievement through Teamwork’ at the Railway Industry Innovation Award in 2003. The project was commended for its approach to integrated planning, which included defining event parameters, start and finish times, main event days, and estimating attendance figures, as well as for its close collaboration with various external agencies such as the British Transport Police, Golden Jubilee Weekend Trust, Westminster City Council and National Rail Services.

Jubilees

• The UK had not celebrated a Diamond Jubilee since Queen Victoria’s in 1897. Queen Elizabeth II is only the second monarch in history to reach this milestone. The national focus of the celebrations was London, with the Thames Diamond Jubilee River Pageant considered as a major event on the 3 June 2012.

• Upfront (the staff magazine for Surface Transport) deemed the Pageant as the “biggest collection of historic vessels ever assembled”, featuring 1,000 boats travelling a seven mile route from Putney Bridge to Tower Bridge. All eight of TfL’s piers were involved in loading participants into the boats, with Westminster and Tower Piers being the busiest.

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State Funerals

• King George V died on 20 January 1936 at Sandringham. His body arrived in London on 23 January and the Lying-in-State in Westminster Hall began on 24 January. The numbers of mourners wishing to pay their respects was so large that Westminster Hall remained open until 6am on the 26th and until 4am on the morning of the funeral. In order to serve the mourners, London Passenger Transport Board decided to run special services and keep Westminster Station open all night – the first time an underground station had remained open for 24hrs.

• On the day of the funeral, 2 million people used the Board’s services. Between 5:30am and 2:30pm, the underground carried as many passengers as it normally would have over the course of 19 hours. Hammersmith Station saw 120,000 users, Piccadilly Circus Station and Liverpool Street Station each saw 100,000 users, and for 6 hours 26 trains per hour served Charing Cross Station – a total of 8,316 tube cars.

• The largest ever number of bus controllers to that date were deployed to cope with the traffic ramifications. On the night of the 26th-27th, 98 special buses worked 2,500 miles. And on the day of the funeral procession itself 52 bus services needed to be curtailed or diverted – this amounted to a staggering 2,443 buses, more than half of those in operation, needing to have clear alternative arrangements made for them.

State Funerals

• The public were admitted to the Lying-in-State of King George VI from 12 February until 14 February 1952. The London Transport Executive employed estimation techniques in an attempt to forecast numbers of people wishing to attend the Lying-in-State but these proved to be rather unreliable and extra services, manned by volunteers, ended up running. Trains ran until 3am on selected sections of the District, Piccadilly, Northern, Bakerloo, and Central lines.

• The public were prepared to queue for hours to pay their respects. It was estimated that on the night of 13 February, 4,820 people travelled on the underground after normal hours with both the 2.17am and 2.41am eastbound trains at Westminster recording full capacity with 200 people standing.

• Sir Winston Churchill was 1 of only 4 non-royal public figures in the twentieth century to receive a state funeral. Tubes operated later throughout the Lying-in-State period, but this fact was not to be fully advertised to the public in an attempt at crowd control.

• The full rehearsal for the funeral procession took place in the early hours of 29 January 1965 and involved the curtailing or diversion of 35 bus routes and 12 night bus routes. And on the day of the funeral itself the District, Central, Bakerloo, and Northern lines operated an additional 36 trips between them.

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Lord Mayor’s Show

• At 3.5 miles long, the procession of the Lord Mayor’s Show stretches from Bank to Aldwych and takes approximately 3hrs to pass. As a result, the City of London is closed for most of the day, with no road access in or out. Details of road closures are often not confirmed to the public until the week before the event but as they remain broadly the same year to year, publicity for spectator transport can begin in advance.

• In 1937, the Lord Mayor’s Show became the first outside event ever to be broadcast live and in the early days this often meant TV cameras setting up camp on Underground station roofs!

• As well as organising roads and managing the crowds, sometimes Transport for London and its predecessors have been involved in the procession itself. This is normally in relation to the theme of the procession or a particular anniversary.

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Notting Hill Carnival

• Celebrating its 50th year, the Notting Hill Carnival is the largest street festival in Europe and originated in 1966 as a way for Afro-Caribbean communities to celebrate their own cultures and traditions. At the roots of the Notting Hill Carnival are the Caribbean carnivals of the early 19th century – a particularly strong tradition in Trinidad – which were all about celebrating the abolition of slavery and the slave trade.

• Now taking place every August Bank Holiday weekend in the streets of London W11, the Notting Hill Carnival is an amazing array of sounds, colourful sights and social solidarity.

• The Notting Hill Carnival is the single most popular event in London, attracting up to 1.5 million people across the 2 days.

• London embraces Carnival time and the staff of this organisation are no different!

Staff Magazine

Millennium Eve

• Transport for London deals with the New Year’s Eve crowds on an annual basis, but the festivities planned to mark the arrival of a new Millennium called for extra thought. The service strategy adopted by London Underground, London Buses, and Docklands Light Railway needed to be as flexible as possible due to the uncertainty and dynamics of the expected numbers of visitors. All LRT operations passed successfully and bore testament to the significant time and resource that the organisation put into the planning of those services. The 42hr continuous service that the Underground provided was something that had not previously been attempted since the coronation of King George VI in 1937.

• The 42hr Underground service was achieved without any major failures or incidents despite the train and LT001896/094

station service being stretched to the extreme during the period leading up to and after the firework display along the Thames. In fact most lines operated more trains than scheduled for the period after the firework display – 328 in total as opposed to the 302 scheduled. • Operational staff and volunteers performed exceptionally and engineering support services rapidly responded to faults that occurred, resolving problems quickly.

Millennium Eve

• The policy to operate a free service between 2350 and 0900 proved successful. The policy was adopted as a result of operational experience in dealing with large crowd events such as Wembley Cup Finals and Notting Hill Carnival. It enabled the concentration of critical staff resources at key locations, ensuring a smooth flow of passengers throughout the system.

• London Buses benefited significantly from experience gained over the previous 15 years of running enhanced bus services over the New Years Eve and Day period. It was this experience that led to the development of a bus termini strategy. This coupled with closely developed command and control procedures with the Metropolitan and British Transport Police, meant that, despite there being unprecedented crowds at street level wishing to use the bus services, the bus operations were able to run a relatively efficient service.

• Day services on both Millennium Eve and New Years Day operated as planned with no lost mileage experienced. Night services also operated according to plan.

Sporting Events

• London plays hosts to some of the most high profile sporting events in the world. A list of the top ten events in London each year includes five sporting fixtures: the Oxford versus Cambridge boat race, the London Marathon, International Cricket, Wimbledon and Premier League football matches. The additional pressure these events put onto the transport network is considerable with venue capacity ranging between 15,000 and 90,000 and up to 70% of all attendees choosing to use public transport to take them to and from events.

• Capacity of Greater London Sporting Venues: – Epsom Racecourse – 120,000 – Wembley Stadium - 90,000 – Twickenham Stadium - 82,000 – Emirates Stadium (Arsenal) - 60,432 – Stamford Bridge (Chelsea) - 41,837 – Lord’s Cricket Ground - 30,000 – Craven Cottage (Fulham) - 25,700 – Oval Cricket Ground - 24,500 – Centre Court Wimbledon 14,979

Sporting Events

• To help manage the increased passenger numbers traveling to and from events, a six month calendar listing all events expected to attract crowds of more than a thousand people intending to use the tube is produced. This guide provides information on the event start and finish times, how much help it is expected visitors will need, the expected attendance numbers, nearest stations and impacted lines.

• Contingency planning for large sporting events involves reviewing timetable arrangements; investing in additional services or amending schedules to include additional station stops; providing additional staff as required; reviewing crowd behaviour, passenger movement and safety; and managing clear and ongoing communication with the public, other public services and event organisers.

• Train loading observations are made during major events to record the number of people traveling in each train, what times people arrive, how crowds build up, and whether planned services are able to meet demand.

• The first London Marathon was held on 29 March 1981 with over 6,500 participating and 6,255 finishers. The event has grown in popularity each year with nearly a quarter of a million people applying for one of the 50,000 available running places in 2016. 2016 also saw the total number of participants exceed one million. With over 25 London Underground and DLR stations located along the route TfL helps runners and spectators access the event. The high use of the underground network during the event is a result not only of facilitating spectator access but also absorbing the additional passengers who usually travel by bus or private car who are affected by the large number of road closures.

Sporting Events

• Wimbledon is the oldest major tennis tournament in the world with the first championships held in 1877. Approximately 450,000 people attend the tournament over the two week period with the majority travelling there by tube or bus. Special shuttle bus services are laid on during the championships to run passengers between Southfields and Wimbledon stations and Lawn Tennis Club.

• In 1981 the All England Lawn Tennis Club decided to extend the number of playing days and go ahead with matches on the Sunday following the traditional last Saturday. Their reasons included wanting the Championships to be run in a more orderly way and increase television viewer figures as this would correspond to an increase in revenue raised through licensing. The proposal was not originally welcomed by London Transport as it considered that as the same number of matches was taking place attendance levels would be the same whereas transporting the same number of passengers over a longer time period would incur additional costs for London Transport without the benefit of increased revenue.

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1966 World Cup

• During the 1966 World Cup London hosted ten matches including the semi-final, 3rd place match and the final. Of these matches nine were hosted at Wembley, with the Uruguay v France group one match moved to White City Stadium - allegedly so that an existing commitment to greyhound racing on Fridays could be honoured at Wembley! Sadly the archive provides no proof to evidence this claim. 96,924 people attended the final on 30 July 1966 (1,346 less than attended England’s group one match against France at Wembley) and the 1966 tournament boasted the largest average attendance for the World Cup tournament until it was surpassed by the United Stated in 1994.

• To assist in providing accurate travel and venue information to visitors from all over the world, all communications for the event were coordinated through the Press Office with Special World Cup Information centres established in Reed’s Showroom in Piccadilly, at principal rail stations, and London and Gatwick airports. Bespoke publications including passenger guides, sight-seeing leaflets and underground maps were produced to support the communication strategy and featured an image of World Cup Willie, the tournament’s mascot. Designed by a children’s book illustrator Reg Hoye, Willie, a lion wearing a

Union Jack Jersey emblazoned with the words World Cup, was the FIFA World Cup’s first Mascot.

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Cycling

• The Tour de France was first organised in 1903. Since then it has been run every year, with the exception of stopping for World War I and World War II, and is considered to be one of the biggest single sporting events in the world being watched by approximately 3.5 billion people in 190 countries.

• London has hosted the Tour de France twice – Le Grand Depart in 2007, and Stage 3 in 2014. Both occasions were deemed a huge success.

• From a transport logisitics point of view the figures for the 2014 stage are staggering:

• All roads in London successfully reopened within 5 minutes

of the publicised time of 18:00 (with the exception of The Mall area, planned to reopen at 23:59)

• Traffic levels and bus routes affected ACC.2016/030

returned to normal just after 19:00 • A good service operated across all Tube and Rail lines and stations serving the route, with many stations operating as normal • All competitor coaches reached London City Airport in time for departure to the next stage

Cycling

• 1,366 road closures were in force over a 167km route affecting over 200 London bus routes

• There was a requirement to move 200 riders, 6000 people, 2400 vehicles

• There needed to be a coordinated consistency of messages

across 30 different TfL teams and event partners

• 180,000 letters were distributed in March to residents in affected areas

• 240,000 borough specific leaflets were distributed in June to houses in affected and surrounding areas

• Over 12,000 businesses and stakeholders were engaged with, including door knocking around 1,000 businesses

• Radio ads were played 2895 times across 15 stations in London, Essex, Cambridgeshire targeting 55.6% of all adults at a rate of (at least) 7.5% opportunities to hear

• 170 roadside posters were displayed along the route in London, with another 35 along the route in Essex

1948 Olympics

• In preparation for the Olympic Games, extensive improvement works were carried out at Wembley Park Station at a cost of £100,000. An additional footbridge was provided over the station, with staircases leading to it. A gallery above Platform 1 connected the footbridge to a spacious ticket hall. From this new ticket hall stairs lead down to a subway. Measures to prevent undue crowding within the station included an extensive loud-speaker system, barriers and gates in the ticket hall and elsewhere for controlling passenger flow, and a bell communication system to enable the flow from Olympic Way to be checked. Up to 98,000 passengers passed through the station daily.

• Throughout the period of the Games, the traffic at Wembley Park Station was very heavy. Some of this traffic coincided with normal peak periods and therefore augmentation was impracticable. But during the off peak hours an additional 15 minute Harrow-Baker Street service was run and this, combined with the normal service, gave a regular 5 minute Metropolitan service at Wembley Park. On the Bakerloo Line the off peak service was

increased to a 5 minute interval on each branch, giving a 2.5 minute service in the Central Area. • Station staff numbers were strengthened during the Games period. • Directions to trains were conspicuously posted at a large number of points on the network, including all Bakerloo Line stations.

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1948 Olympics

• The number of locations totalled 90 (21 competition sites, 45 training grounds, 24 accommodation sites), and the special operations necessitated the preparation of an itinerary of 550 routes to be followed by drivers. Detailed schedules and time cards had to be prepared. The routes were selected with a view to avoiding as far as possible heavily congested traffic points. Special posters were designed for display on buses, as well as portable signposts to help the competitors and officials.

• High spot of the work of the Central Busmen was the movement, in an overall time of 1hr and 10mins, of the 6,000 competitors from the accommodation centres spread over west and north west London to Wembley for the opening ceremony. When the ceremony was over the teams marched out of the arena and into the 118 buses and coaches waiting to take them back to the camps. The operation went off without a hitch.

• A large proportion of the traffic carried by London Transport Executive’s road services to Wembley went by trolleybus rather than by bus. In anticipation of the additional traffic, arrangements were made to run supplementary services on trolleybus route 662 (Paddington-Wembley-Sudbury) of 10 trolleybuses per hour. The 17 extra vehicles required for these services were worked by volunteer staff.

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2012 Olympics

• The scope of transport operations for the London 2012 Games was the most demanding the nation’s transport network has ever had to meet: 34 venues, 26 sports, 10,500 athletes, 8.8 million ticketed spectators and 22,000 media. For the Paralympics this was 20 venues, 20 sports, more than 4,000 athletes, 2.7 million ticketed spectators. Delivering the operation required an exciting and unique adaptation to existing networks and services. And as 24 competition venues and two thirds of spectators were based in London, much of this duty fell to Transport for London.

• The commitment was made at bid stage to deliver the first ever wholly public transport Games. Six principles underpinned the transport strategy

– Movement of athletes was top priority – Virtually 100% of ticketed spectators were to travel by public

transport, walking, or cycling – London had to be kept moving and business must continue – The Games must be accessible – A lasting, positive legacy must be left – Maximum value for money must be achieved

• Transport for London’s primary role was to keep London moving, a close second was the fulfilment of the c.100% of ticketed spectators travelling by public transport, foot, or cycle. But TfL was also responsible for the design and procurement of Games specific wayfinding, for signage co-ordination, for assisting the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) with the planning and delivery of the Central London Zone and Road events. From 2011, TfL took over responsibility for Travel Demand Management and freight. And in addition, the Mayor’s Transport Strategy also required TfL to ensure long term benefits from investment in Games transport.

2012 Olympics

• The transport section of London’s bid for the 2012 Games highlighted the vast experience of London and its various organisations in event management. A commitment was made to underpin the transport plan with: – Station capacity increases and enhancements – Train capacity increases and enhancements – Travel demand modelling – Travel demand management – Integrated ticketing – Legacy

• The specific London Underground section of the bid built on these commitments, promising: – An Olympic and Paralympic Route Network – Capacity growth on services and stations – Stratford Station Redevelopment – DLR and West Ham Station Upgrades – North London Line Upgrades – Travel demand management – Engagement with freight industry and changes to freight BAU – Legacy

2012 Olympics

• In order to accommodate the expected unprecedented levels of demand on the DLR network at Games time, the London Bid to the International Olympic Committee included an undertaking to procure 22 additional DLR rail cars to run an enhanced DLR Olympic service, which would then be available for future DLR service enhancements, consistent with the Olympic principle of providing legacy value.

• TfL were already in the process of expanding the fleet to 127 vehicles, however this would not have been enough to deliver the initial outline timetable prepared by DLR that would provide the capacity required for the enhanced service during both the Olympics and Paralympics.

• An agreement for the Olympic Delivery Authority to fund 50% of the 22 railcars was reached.

• Work carried out at West Ham station provided new passenger links that allowed spectator access to the Olympic Park along The Greenway. The ODA worked with the London Borough

of Newham and London Underground to enhance access between the District line and Hammersmith and City line platforms, which was used by the majority of spectators using West Ham station to reach the Olympic Park. • The West Ham station scheme created a high capacity walking route for spectators to leave the station and head onto The Greenway.

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2012 Olympics

• A range of temporary and permanent station enhancements were provided to benefit people using the network during the Games. For example, temporary and permanent lifts were constructed at Prince Regent Station to enable the circulation of spectators between the platforms and the ExCel venue. Permanent enhancements included the refurbishment of St John’s Wood Station and the modernisation of Highbury and Islington Station. Two ‘fireman’s lifts’ were brought into public use at Westminster and North Greenwich stations to accommodate mobility impaired demand, whilst boarding ramps for wheelchair users were introduced on the Underground as a temporary scheme, which has since been continued.

• A record 4.5 million journeys were made on London Underground during a single day in the Games. 62 million journeys were made overall on the London Underground, 35% more than normal. In the Paralympic period on some days tube passengers were up by 25% on the same period in the previous year.

2012 Olympics

• The Olympic Route Network (ORN) was a network of existing roads connecting competition and non-competition venues. It was designed to facilitate rapid and reliable Games Family travel to and from events or for other purposes connected with the Games. For the Paralympics the network was reduced in scale to form the PRN. Routes to key training venues were also included.

• The majority of routes were part of the existing Transport for London Road Network and so the planning, design, delivery and operation of the ORN and PRN was led by TfL within London, in partnership with the local Borough and City Councils.

• The roads designated as ORN and PRN remained open to general traffic, except for a few minor exceptions close to venues, however access onto the network was restricted to protect reliability and journey times. Journey times were also enhanced through a combination of activity including;

– Traffic signal infrastructure improvements – Temporary road re-engineering, e.g. simplification of junctions – Reduction in crossing points – Ban on roadworks and enhanced response to incidents – System of priority Games Lanes, used flexibly – Enhanced staffing and operation with the London Streets Traffic

Control Centre – Messaging to drivers – Retiming of freight and deliveries to night time

2012 Olympics

• Walk and cycle route enhancements were delivered. The focus was on improvements to 8 walking and cycle routes. Some 120 schemes were delivered on these routes. The most significant improvements were made around the Olympic Park and River one areas, where over 70km of walking and cycling routes have been upgraded. Schemes included resurfacing, improving access, adding dropped kerbs, widening paths, and improving road crossings. TfL led on the delivery and all schemes were delivered on time for use by spectators at the London 2012 Games and met with widespread support and approval from walk and cycle user groups.

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2012 Olympics

• The London 2012 Travel Demand Management (TDM) programme was designed to influence travel behaviour so as to mitigate high levels of forecast demand and keep London moving.

• The Programme provided information and advice to businesses, spectators, and regular travellers.

• The programme was implemented by ODA until 2011 and then by TfL thereafter. It was national in scope and covered both public transport and road impacts.

• The programme was extremely successful, with c.35% of adults in London modifying their travel behaviour on weekdays during the Games.

• Following the Olympics, TDM messages were adjusted to focus on the different footprint of the Paralympic Games.

• The TDM programme was designed to work alongside operational management to achieve a target level of behaviour change. Spectators were assisted to make sensible transport decisions and choose routes that would not exacerbate pressure. Regular travellers were encouraged to retime, reroute, reduce or revise the mode of their travel. Businesses were supported to make operational changes.

• The scale of change was ambitious and challenging. • A website – Get Ahead of the Games – and twitter service was

launched in January 2012 to provide a gateway for regular travellers to all the information they might need to understand how their journeys could be affected and plan alternatives. By August 2012 the website had had over 16 million page views and 4,663,464 unique visitors.

2012 Olympics

• TDM worked with business groups from Spring 2010 onwards. This provided a channel for advice and information.

• Larger businesses, employing more than 200 people in hotspot locations such as the City of London, received direct support to develop Games time Transport Action Plans.

• A toolkit was developed to assist businesses in assessing their vulnerability to predicted transport conditions and enable them to develop contingency plans.

• Action planning workshops were held at venues across London to assist businesses. 2979 businesses attended workshops between Summer 2011 and June 2012.

• A variety of direct and indirect communication methods were employed to raise awareness among businesses and push them to plan: – Presentations were made to 21,786 business – Adverts were placed in trade journals, City AM and the Evening

Standard – An initial direct mail to 200,000 businesses took place in Spring

2011. A second direct mail was particularly targeted to hotspot areas. This saw c.42,000 information packs sent in February/March 2012. This was followed by a door knocking exercise where a further 20,000 packs were distributed

– A number of high profile conferences and events for businesses were organised to promote the advice to pre-plan

– During the Games a twice-daily email was issued to business at 4:30am and 2pm, giving advice on the day and following day

2012 Olympics

• An integrated Get Ahead of the Games marketing campaign was launched in January 2012. Additionally a series of PR events were held in key hotspots such as London Bridge. The marketing campaign was in three phases:

– Communicating that transport was to be affected at certain times and places. This phase emphasised the scale of the Games. This phase was designed to direct people to the Get Ahead of the Games website

– Encouraging people to consider alternative travel behaviour, including time of travel, route, working at home, and changing modes to walking and cycling

– Urging people to make the changes they planned. Research indicated that many people were intending to travel as normal and then decide whether or not to change

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2012 Olympics

• TfL and the London Boroughs were also responsible for helping the road freight industry to plan for and manage the impact of the Games. This included:

– Raising the awareness of the potential impacts of the Games – Identifying and promoting types of measures to be used to manage

and mitigate the impacts of the Games – Working with local authorities to introduce measures during the

Games – Making available the information needed by the road freight industry

to plan and manage their response to the Games, including the launch of the Freight Journey Planner

– TfL worked with a range of business organisations, such as the Freight Transport Association, Road Haulage Association, the Federation of Small Businesses, and Chambers of Commerce, to ensure that knowledge about the impact of the Games was distributed to the widest audience possible.

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2012 Olympics

• The wayfinding strategy delivered by TfL was designed to clearly communicate how spectators should navigate across any particular travel mode. At the same time, effective signage was a key element in crowd control management.

• Aesthetically, the designs were consistent with the 2012 Games identity to ensure that the Games experience was seamless, enjoyable, and confusion free.

• Consideration was made with the signage kit of parts for contingencies such as temporary station closure and extended queuing. All signs were designed to be as inclusive as possible and therefore messages used pictograms where appropriate plus lettering with as large a point size as possible. Signs were not loaded with any surplus information in order to prevent bottlenecking caused by visitors overly scrutinising messages in confined spaces. Equally, signs were clear and unambiguous to prevent confusion.

• The 2012 wayfinding signage provided directions to and from: – Games competition venues – Official Live Sites – Official London 2012 Shops, meeting points, and ticket

collection points – Designated venue stations and transport nodes – Travel between the stations part of the spectator journey

• The 2012 wayfinding signage could only carry non-commercial names and factual references. No deviations were permitted.

2012 Olympics

• The strategy for 2012 Games wayfinding was to build the signage around the building blocks which were tried and tested and in place. Therefore, wherever possible, existing TfL design elements were used, for example font, functional pictograms, and mapping style.

• The magenta of the signing system was successfully testes against the wide colour range currently in use within the London transport network. Magenta was also the only colour that did not already feature predominantly on signs within the UK transport or street environment.

• The wayfinding system formed a magenta trail, starting with the tickets and spectator guide posted to spectators. This provided an intuitive, highly visible and distinctive backdrop to all signs.

• Following the magenta trail allowed distant signs that may at first be illegible, to be recognisable as 2012 Games communications from their colour and shape. Overlaying adhesive-backed signs on existing signs and infrastructure provided a simple and clear method of communicating 2012 venues and directions without impeding or interfering with existing information required by regular users.

• Venues and transport hubs were described in English using the New Johnston Medium font that allowed non-English speakers to recognise letter forms of their particular destination.

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2012 Olympics

• Funding was provided to London Underground for the platform train interface project. This provided additional platform humps on the Piccadilly Line and introduced the use of manual boarding ramps at 16 stations. Another project was making pier and river vessel access improvements to River Services.

• London 2012 promoted accessibility and inclusion. But while a growing number of stations and rolling stock are being made accessible, the underground network is still some way from being fully accessible. Additional access facilities, such as lifts, ramps, and personal assistance, were all part of the plans that were put in place at a number of stations for the Games. TfL contributed financially to an improved passenger assistance booking scheme.

• Taxis and private hire vehicles were required during the Games where individuals required a level of flexibility not offered by public transport. In particular, taxis provided an accessible travel alternative for those with special needs and impairments.

• The ODA and TfL ensured that the latest good practice guidance for the integration of taxi ranks and pre-booked taxi and private hire vehicles was used when designing venue transport infrastructure.

• Taxi, pre-booked taxi and private hire were able to pick up and drop off at specific zones at all of the Games venues.

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2012 Olympics

• Before London won the 2012 Games, TfL already had plans in place for transport schemes such as the East London Line, new train fleets for Victoria, Circle, Hammersmith and City, and Metropolitan lines, Jubilee and Central line improvements, and the Access for All programme. But the Games were a catalyst for bringing these programmes forward. The ODA also contributed funds: some for completely new projects; some to enhance existing projects; and some to bring forward projects that would not otherwise have been completed in time. Key projects essential to the smooth running of the Games but which also had a strong legacy value included:

• Transformation of Stratford Station and improved services n the DLR and London Overground – a legacy for Londoners in place before the Games even began

• Upgrades to transport networks have delivered greater frequency and reliability, including on the Central and Jubilee lines and DLR

• The London Overground has new signalling, trains and refurbished stations – many step-free

• Innovative maintenance plans and procedures, such as the tube’s Emergency Response Unit travelling to fix signal, train and track problems under ‘blue lights’ have improved response times

• On the roads, TfL’s investment in traffic signal technology, Active Traffic Management, and modelling techniques have left a legacy of improved traffic management and smoother traffic flow

Digital Archives

Digitised Material • We are often asked why a document is not available

digitally and surprise is particularly expressed at the fact that, proportionately, virtually none of the collections are available in an electronic format. The reason for this is first and foremost the sheer scale of the collections. The Corporate Archives holds over 150,000 files of material. To digitise all of these to a legally and professionally acceptable archival standard would cost in the region of £25million

• But that is not stopping us from making inroads. We have already digitised a substantial set of our staff registers, which date from 1863 and provide invaluable information for those interested in family history, social history, company history, and economic history. These are available to the public online through Ancestry.com

• We have also, in conjunction with the London Transport Museum and the London Transport Museum Friends, successfully digitised our joint collections of staff magazines. These date from 1914 and have been digitised with optical character recognition meaning that they are fully searchable electronically

C ontact Us

Most of our paper records are stored in a salt mine in Cheshire under secure conditions that meet British Standards for storing archival materials. Our public reading room is based in central London. Visits are by appointment only so you must book first using the contact details on this page. Email: corporatearchives@tfl.gov.uk Our catalogue contains over 150,000 descriptions of our material. It is available online at http://www.tflcorporatearchivescatalogue.co.uk/CalmViewA/