With just days to go until the start of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Southeastern is today reminding passengers to allow additional time when travelling and to plan ahead, as train services will be exceptionally busy.
Alison Nolan from Southeastern said: “From this weekend, our services will be extremely busy, so we hope by now that people are starting to think about their travel options during the Games.
“The dedicated website www.GetAheadoftheGames.com is the best source of information for travel hotspots, so we recommend passengers travelling during Games-time check to see how their journey is likely to be affected. While we’re running the maximum number of trains possible, putting on longer carriages and a new timetable, services will still be really busy. Queues are to be expected at many London terminal stations. Our advice is to allow enough time to travel and consider re-timing your journeys to avoid the busiest times on the network.”
Extra trains, extra seats:
Southeastern is running 200 extra trains every single day over the Olympic Games period, providing a 50 percent increase in the number of seats into and out of London – that’s a total of 6.2 million extra seats over the duration of the Games.
Southeastern is running the high speed Javelin® service which will transport around 25,000 people an hour at peak times from St Pancras International to the Olympic Park at Stratford in just seven minutes. The service will run 24 hours a day, with up to 12 trains an hour at the busiest times.
Around 1000 additional temporary staff will be on-hand at stations to provide assistance to spectators and regular customers, and all 3,800 Southeastern permanent staff will be working around the clock to provide the best possible train service.
Special Olympic train timetable:
Southeastern will have a special timetable in operation throughout the Olympic and Paralympic Games period, where trains will start earlier and run later on some routes. Extra carriages will be added to help meet the increased demand. Southeastern passengers should check for changes before travelling and allow additional time, as queues will be in place at many London and Olympic venue stations. Timetables can be downloaded here.
Essential maintenance only:
To meet this special timetable there will be no scheduled heavy maintenance or planned engineering works during the Games – only essential maintenance to ensure the maximum fleet availability to transport passengers during the busy period. We’ll have mobile emergency response teams across the network ready to respond to any issues quickly.
Advice to passengers:
If you do intend to travel during the Games period, plan ahead to avoid the busiest times and hotspots on the transport network by visiting the dedicated website: www.GetAheadoftheGames.com
Spectators can find out the best way of getting to their event venue by checking with the London 2012 Spectator Journey Plan at: www.london2012.com
Station hotspots:
All London termini will be extremely busy, but London Bridge, Greenwich, Charlton, Blackheath, St Pancras and Stratford International stations are likely to be the most affected during the Games as they serve a number of Olympic venues and events. Further Southeastern hotspot advice can be found here.
Please note:
The busiest day will be on Monday 30 July (day 3) when 50,000 people are expected to attend the Equestrian cross-country event at Greenwich Park. On this day, London Bridge platforms 1-6 will be exit only in the evening from 6pm- 10pm. Southeastern passengers should board services at Cannon Street, Charing Cross, Victoria or Waterloo East instead. Southern platforms are unaffected.
For further information visit the Southeastern Olympic pages.
Southeastern
