1996 ATLANTA CENTENNIAL OLYMPIC GAMES AND PARALYMPIC GAMES EVENT STUDY

The Atlanta metropolitan region was the location of one of the most ambitious Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) deployments in the United States. This deployment included several individual projects - a Central Transportation Management Center (TMC), six Traffic Control Centers (TCCs), one Transit Information Center (TIC), the Travel Information Showcase (TIS), and the extension of the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) Rail network and the new high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes on I-85 and I-75. The 1996 Atlanta Centennial Olympic Games and Paralympic Games created a focus for these projects. All of these systems were to be brought on-line in time for the Olympic Games. This report presents the findings of the 1996 Olympic and Paralympic Games Events Study - a compilation of findings of system performance, the benefits realized, and the lessons learned during their operations over the events period. The study assessed the performance of the various Travel Demand Management (TDM) plans employed for Olympic Games traffic management. This intermodal system performance and benefits assessment also presents recommendations for other major special-event host cities and ITS deployments, based on the lessons learned from the Atlanta Centennial Olympic Games transportation operations.