London 2012 Olympics Travel: What are the Options?

Jul 13th 2011

As we get closer to the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, a lot of people are getting exited about this momentous event. The Olympics coming to the UK is a rare event; the only other years were 1908 and 1948 (although London is the only city to have hosted the event three times). But for many businesses, while the summer of 2012 is going to present some unprecedented opportunities, it is also going to present a whole host of new challenges.

The biggest of these challenges is travel. Travel in London is not easy at the best of times. During the Olympics it is going to become a lot more difficult and tedious to travel around the city, and even with the many upgraded transport links, the huge amount of extra people travelling around the city is going to cause extra delays. On top of this, special measures to close off certain lanes of The Highway to athletes and VIPs are going to worsen congestion along this fairly central route, with other knock-on effects for traffic in the middle of London.

What are the Options?

Thankfully, there are options for businesses to help employees who are commuting in London, or to reduce the amount of travel in city. Of course, the extent to which you can apply these ways of working depends on the nature of your industry, but a least some of these should be applicable to most companies.

Providing Advice

This is a very simple and cheap solution – so much so, in fact, that it is often overlooked. Ahead of the event, do a little bit of research into alternative routes, which areas are going to be particularly busy, and more general information, such as estimates of how much extra travelling time will be needed.

The Olympic Stadium, as seen from The Greenway – Photograph by hairyegg

Flexible Working Hours

Offering the chance for flexible working hours could be a good option for many businesses. A Deloitte survey from March found that a third of the companies who responded to the survey said they would be more understanding of employees facing transport problems for the duration of the Games. A general increase in flexible working could be a good way to avoid these problems, allowing employees to work slightly different hours so that they are able to avoid travelling in the worst traffic, where possible. Enough intelligent forward planning will allow you to incorporate flexible working hours with less disruption to your company than you would face through employees being late on a regular basis.

Off-site and Remote Working

The same survey revealed that 8 per cent of employers would allow greater flexibility over remote working options. Remote working could be the ideal solution to problems with London Olympics travel for many companies. Opening up to remote working options can be an ideal solution to the many working hours which will be lost through disruption to normal transport routes. One of the concerns for many businesses is that productivity will reduce if people are working at home, surrounded by distractions. Many studies, however, suggest that this is not the case.

If your business has multiple locations, temporarily allowing staff to work at sites closer to their homes would cut down on time lost in commuting too.

Buy a Virtual Office

A good way for your business to have a presence in London is to buy a virtual office. A virtual office gives you an office address at a prestigious location in London, without the need for additional staff to run operations in the city. Virtual office packages include the assistance of a “virtual receptionist”, who will help by dealing with and forwarding calls. Other services are included in these packages, such as mail handling. Virtual offices present a great opportunity for remote working, reducing the number of staff working in the centre of London, avoiding high rent prices in the city, and reducing commuting times during this busy period.

Moving Meetings

Another way to cut down on travel in the city is to arrange meetings outside of the city, where possible. Arranging a remote meeting, through conference calls or video conferencing, can be another highly effective way of cutting down on commuting during busy periods such as this.

Is your business going to be affected by London Olympics travel issues? What solutions has your company come up with for dealing with this? Let us know in the comments section below.

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