Travel Demand Management for London Olympics 2012

The London Congestion Charge was not the only travel demand management tool employed by Transport for London during the Olympics in 2012. This post looks into some of  measures taken by TfL to manage travel demand during the Games.

With an estimated 20 million visitors expected to attend the Olympic and Paralympic Games the transport network was poised to experience “substantial increases” in travel demand, says Rose McArthur, SKM Practice Leader in sustainable travel ‘with extensive experience in developing strategies to improve travel choices. London 2012 and the Transport for London (TfL) had deemed the 2012 Games as the first ‘public transport Games’, meaning that, “100 percent of visitors were asked to travel to the Games on public transport, by bicycle or on foot”. It was noted that on the busiest day some 800,000 spectators opted for public transport, resulting in approximately 3 million surplus trips. In such a scenario, travel demand management was critical to ensure the smooth operation of transportation and all those affected by London’s transport system and the Games.  

Beijing’s Friend in TDM

Beijing is partnering with a German public-benefit organization to study TDM strategies.

We all get by with a little help from our friends. When Beijing set out to reduce its VMT and auto emissions, it began working with a new partner with some expertise in the field and a fresh point of view.

The (Chinese) Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) and the Beijing Municipal Commission for Transportation (BMCT) agreed to have their own Beijing Transport Research Center (BTRC) collaborate with the German Society for International Cooperation (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, or GIZ), to work on the Beijing Transportation Demand Management project [1]. 

Parking Policy

The bus rapid transit of Bogotá has been well known for its sustainable transportation system. However, the parking revolution has gotten little attention. Along with launching the Transmilenio Project, the parking reformation was  started to provide more public spaces for the people. Specifically, the main goal was to recover public spaces which were occupied by automobiles instead of people. It was also to take back public spaces which were taken up by vendors, street hawkers, and other private users to public space users including pedestrians. Peñalosa, a former mayor during 1998-2000 when various innovative people-centric transportation policies were implemented, refuted the idea that users of parking facilities, such as car drivers and shopping mall owners, need to supply their parking places  for public use, and argued that it is not necessary to accommodate their private needs through public assets. He commented once  "Does the city give me a public closet to put my shoes inside? No, then they shouldn't give me a parking space to park my car." Although most of the citizens favored the new parking policy where on-street parking places were transformed into wide sidewalks, it was really hard to implement because of opposition from neighboring communities and retailers. The mayor was almost impeached due to this policy. On-street parking reforms turned out to be successful. On-street parking places had been replaced by off-street parking lots. Tax subsidies to private retailers or companies who built off-street parking facilities aided in the success.

(Resources)

1. Arturo Ardila and Gerhard Menckhoff,2002. "Transportation policies in Bogota, Colombia: building a transportation system for the people” ,Transportation Research Record 1817, 2002.

2. Carlosfelipe Pardo , "Parking revolution in Bogota: The Golden Era, 1998-2000", October, 2010. Web.

http://www.reinventingparking.org/2010/10/parking-revolution-in-bogota-golden-era.html

Today You Don't Drive

Mexico City is one of several cities currently operating a license plate rationing strategy for transportation demand management. This has been predominantly a mechanism used in Latin American cities, including Bogota and Sao Paolo. License plate rationing is when access to certain areas--usually downtown cores--is restricted by the plate numbers on vehicles. For example, on Mondays cars with plates that end in a 5 or 6 cannot enter downtown. This policy is meant to primarily improve air quality, but also limit congestion and increase transit ridership.