An Olympic sized challenge

Professor Graham Currie

It’s not surprising that someone who has been involved with the last four Olympic Games loves to train.  But for Graham Currie, Chair of Public Transport at Monash’s Institute of Transport Studies, performing on the world stage does not involve a gruelling fitness regime and super-human athletic abilities.

Professor Currie first became involved with the Games through the development of a research paper that reviewed the transport problems faced in Atlanta in 1996.  This led to advisory roles in developing transport plans for the first Melbourne Grand Prix later that year and then the Sydney Olympics in 2000.  Since then, Professor Currie has advised both the Athens and Beijing Olympic Committees on how to tackle the enormous task of moving thousands of fans in already crowded cities.

How big a task?  In Athens for example, over 2,500 new buses had to be procured – that’s twice the size of the whole bus fleet of Melbourne!

More recently Professor Currie’s skills and experience have been called upon again, this time by the 2012 Olympic Games Delivery Authority in London.  He has placed particular emphasis on Travel Demand Management Systems, strategies to encourage public transport use and approaches to reducing road congestion.

“The Olympic Games are the single biggest transport challenge cities have ever faced” Currie says.  He estimates that London will have to deal with up to 11 million extra spectator trips and the specialist daily needs of some 40,000 athletes and officials.

And just like the athletes on the field, with the world’s media ever-hungry for a story, the pressure to perform is intense.

 “My interest in Olympic Games transport has nothing to do with sport,” Professor Currie stresses.  “Games transport is a perfect example of how cities will work in the future.  They are real world, not theoretical models of our transport futures.  Cities must realise they have no choice but to proactively invest in public transport if they are to deliver results.”