How can a city prepare for the logistical and operational challenges of being inundated by a million ticket-holders, 50,000 workers and volunteers, 6600 athletes and team officials and 3000 members of the media – all across 14 competition venues, for 11 days?

That’s exactly the challenge the Gold Coast City Council has taken on as it gets ready to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games (GC2018).

With just days left until the start of the GC2018, Trish Apps, General Manager Delivery, GC2018 Commonwealth Games, gave IPWEA’s Australasian Fleet Conference delegates an insight into the mind-boggling task of organising a massive international event.  

Apps said the scale of the Games dwarfed other major events the city has previously hosted – the entire three-day Gold Coast 600 supercar event is equivalent to one day of GC2018.  

To ensure the Games are a success, the city has utilised:

• 2500-plus front line staff
• Four precinct hubs (Southport, Surfers Paradise, Broadbeach, Coolangatta)
• Three temporary depots (Southport, Surfers Paradise, Broadbeach)
• 200 city lifeguards
• 600-plus city cleaning and maintenance staff

Apps said tackling the Games planning had meant dividing the tasks into 51 individual projects, structured within eight sub programs:  

• Commonwealth Games Unit
• Arts and Culture
• Economic Development
• Major Projects
• Transport and Traffic
• City Assets
• Venues and Village

Apps said the Games have created the opportunity to bring the city’s infrastructure investment forward, and was confident that the infrastructure created for the games – including new and updated venues, creation of the athletes village, road and transport upgrades, Stages 1 and 2 of the Gold Coast light rail and an airport upgrade – would continue to serve the city long after the games have finished. 

“We were cognisant of the fact that there needed to be a legacy through our infrastructure,” Apps said.

The city has also invested in smart city technology, such as smart lighting, smart bins and public Wi-Fi and has even installed its own fibre optic cables. 

Taking full advantage of the opportunities GC2018 has created for the city was one of the biggest challenges, Apps said, along with working effectively across all of the partners and stakeholders, and maintaining the community’s enthusiasm despite the unavoidable inconveniences – largely relating to travel and transport.

Keeping the city moving

The biggest task the team has faced by far is keeping the city moving while dealing with the massive increase in demand for traffic and transport. As Matthew Tilly, the City’s Manager of Transport and Traffic, Traffic Infrastructure explained, the City expects GC2018 to create six million additional trips on its transport network – meaning that the city needs to influence the behaviour on 30-40% of trips, encouraging travellers to either reduce, retime, re-mode or reroute their trips.

The focus has been put on public transport, transport hubs and park ‘n ride facilities, plus walking and cycling. An interactive travel map has been created to alert travellers to changed traffic conditions, road closures, areas where parking is restricted, and give information about how busy public transport options are expected to be at certain times.

Being prepared

Apps was joined for a panel session with Peter Rawlings, the city’s Executive Coordinator for Disaster Management and Inspector David Morganti from the Queensland Police Service. Inspector Morganti said the security team for GC2018 had looked to a number of events for best practice, predominantly the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. Apps said the security setup for GC2018 was now being viewed as best practice, with a number of international police forces would be visiting the Games to learn from the operation. Morganti said cyber security was also being taken very seriously.  

Rawlings said one of the major contingencies his team had been planning for was the possibility of extreme weather events hitting the city during GC2018 – top of his mind was the devastation caused this time last year by severe Tropical Cyclone Debbie.

What’s a hydration station?

Dean Gutteridge, Manager Fleet Services, said GC2018 had thrown a number of challenges at his team.  

“The things we didn’t anticipate hitting us through the Commonwealth Games time would probably be the amount of equipment required on the ground to facilitate the precinct hubs and venues; I’m talking about things like generators, hydration stations – whoever knew what that was before the Commonwealth Games!”