The 2010 Olympic downtown transportation experience: lessons for Vancouver and future host cities of mega-Events

The XXI Olympic Winter Games presented Vancouver with significant transportation challenges and generated concerns about the potential difficulties of travelling during the 17-day period of the Games. Olympic partner organizations developed and implemented a range of transportation demand management (TDM) strategies to influence the travel behaviour of residents. The result was a very successful transportation experience. This paper examines the details of the Olympic downtown transportation experience including changes that residents made to their travel behaviour and the factors that contributed to the success of transportation in the downtown. In the end, ten transportation lessons for Vancouver were generated from this research. These lessons have a range of applications from informing long-term transportation planning to planning for episodic events. Additionally, this paper highlights the opportunity that future host cities have to leverage mega-events like the Olympic Games to generate valuable and insightful lessons on addressing current and future transportation challenges.