"Roland Perry" wrote in message ...

In message , at 17:49:58 on Sun, 5 Jun
2011, tim.... remarked:

Many events do start at 9 am. This will require arrivals at mainline
London
stations about 8.00.

Which means departures from much of the country at 6am... and
unavailable departures before that from the rest.

I don't understand this "night" peak.

AIUI about 6 million people create the normal London peak flows. Even if
all of the Olympic venues finish late it isn't going to be more than
250,000, a fraction of the normal peak so why's it a problem?

Because many Intercity routes shut down too early. On the ECML, the last
train to Newcastle is 10pm, and the next and last train (also serving
intermediate stations of course) is 11.30pm to Leeds.

People trying to get to those trains from an event typically finishing
at 10pm in the Olympic Park would miss the Newcastle one and all be
shoehorned on the Leeds one.

I'm sure the timings are similar for many other routes, which will often
be further from the Park than Kings Cross.

The railways have another solution (on top of the extra late trains) -
make tickets transferable to the morning of the next day. What I haven't
seen is any idea where those passengers will spend the night.
--
Roland Perry


If I can add some experience from the Sydney Olympics. Before the event
there was widespread alarm about the disruption. However things worked out
rather well, if fact people now look back on that period with fondness.
Trains ran on time and everything worked. The effort put in to make it work
was enormous and the city has never recovered- so much was spent that 10
years later we are still suffering from the money spend on those 14 days.

I expect London and the Organising committee will do just as good a job.
There was very little disruption because double or three times the transport
that was needed was provided, and peak hours services (trains and bus) ran
24 hrs per day for the games period.
Yes I think late night services will be organised, as someone mentioned a
lot of events finish late, 10 to 11pm and people are not ready to go home so
eating venues and party venues are just commencing. (hence the 24 hrs
services). The city will really become a 24 hr city and in Sydney it not
unusual to see peak hour crowds at 3 am.
A lot of business did close down for the period and school holidays were
rearranged to coincide, we even had daylight saving (in our winter) to help
with the safe movement of people.

Have a fun games.

Peter
Sydney