More than a sporting event: the transport legacy of GC2018

Abstract

The Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games (GC2018) was the biggest event held in Australia in over a decade. The City of Gold Coast (the City) transport responsibilities for GC2018 were to get the transport network ready to facilitate the required Games overlay (including significant capital and maintenance upgrades) and then – most importantly from the City point of view – keep the Gold Coast moving during the event. This included: - Preparing businesses and residents for the impacts of the Games through the Get Set for the Games program and supporting them with real-time travel information during Games time.  - Preparing the city’s local transport system for network changes necessary to get athletes and Games Family around the network and to enable the essential security overlay around venues.  - Proactively managing background traffic to minimise the impacts on the city. The ability of a regional city with an immature public transport system, limited road capacity and where approximately 88 per cent of trips are made by car to deliver an event of this magnitude was seen as a challenge from the outset. Major changes to the transport network were essential to accommodate seven million trips and the expected 1.5 million spectators across the 11 days of competition. The temporary network changes included over 150 road closures, lane closures, road events, changes to freight operations and parking. The task of keeping the city moving during GC2018 was achieved through well-conceived travel demand management initiatives and a hierarchy of priority transport corridors including the Games Route Network, upgrades to alternate routes (for background traffic movements) and real-time monitoring and adjustments. The GC2018 Travel Demand Management program successfully achieved the requisite change in travel behaviour with significant shift to off-peak travel and public transport and active transport. The City delivered the largest ever business and industry engagement program in Queensland, resulting in unprecedented local use of public transport. Transport infrastructure delivered for Games will benefit the city’s residents and visitors for years to come. Permanent legacies include kilometres of new footpaths, cyclist wayfinding signage, bicycle racks, bicycle share scheme, major intersection upgrades and extensive road surface improvements. In the post-Games aftermath, the City is actively applying GC2018 transport learnings to business as usual operations. The City is poised realise the full GC2018 transport legacy for the Gold Coast through a focus on: - leveraging relationships with business and industry to effect long-term travel behaviour change - continuation of intelligence-led travel advice to influence travel behaviour - greater collaboration with partners for both steady-state and incident network management - applying transport learnings to existing and new major events hosted by the city - investment in rapidly advancing technologies associated with network intelligence and proactive network optimisation. The City now faces a new challenge: delivering the Gold Coast Transport Strategy 2031 in a post-Games environment. This means leveraging GC2018 legacy benefits while responding to an ever-growing city that now has higher expectations for business as usual transport operations.