page_title: 1998 Winter Olympics
section_title: Transportation
hierarchical_section_title: 1998 Winter Olympics / Organization / Transportation
caption_attribution_description: English: Ueda-Roman Bridge. 日本語: 上田ローマン橋。
context_page_description: The 1998 Winter Olympics, officially the XVIII Olympic Winter Games, and commonly known as Nagano 1998, was a winter multi-sport event celebrated from 7 to 22 February 1998 that were centered in Nagano, Japan. The Games also took place in the nearby mountain communities of Hakuba, Karuizawa, Nozawa Onsen, and Yamanouuchi. The city of Nagano had previously been a candidate to host the 1940 Winter Olympics, as well as the 1972 Winter Olympics, but each time Nagano was eliminated at the national level by Sapporo.
  The games hosted 2,176 athletes from 72 nations competing in 7 sports and 68 events. The number of athletes and participating nations were a record at the time. The Games saw the introduction of women's ice hockey, curling and snowboarding. National Hockey League players were allowed to participate in the men's ice hockey for the first time. Five countries, Azerbaijan, Kenya, Macedonia, Uruguay, and Venezuela made their debut at the Winter Olympics.
  The athlete who won the most medals at these games was the Russian cross-country skier Larisa Lazutina who won five medals, including three gold.
context_section_description: Nagano is situated in a mountainous area of Japan that receives large snowfalls. These combined to make transportation an important challenge for the organizing committee. In addition, the Olympic Village was a distance of 7 kilometers from the center of the city, and sporting events were spread over five surrounding communities. Complicating matters is that many of the venues had one single road in-out, which limited possibilities and led to traffic jams.
  To improve access to Nagano, the government decided to link Nagano with the high-speed shinkansen train network. The Nagano Shinkansen, now the Hokuriku Shinkansen was inaugurated five months before the start of the Games. This reduced by half the travel time between Tokyo and Nagano, to 79 minutes for 221 kilometers. The length of the track between Takasaki Station and Nagano Station is 125.7 km, which includes 63.4 km of tunnels. The high speed train network carried 655,000 passengers during the Games.
  Two highways, the Nagano Expressway and the Jōshin-etsu Expressway, were also built in the Nagano region. In May 1993, the 75.8-kilometer section of the Nagano Expressway was completed, and in October 1997, the 111.4 kilometer section of the Jōshin-etsu Expressway was completed. In addition, another 114.9 kilometers of roads within Nagano Prefecture were improved.
  Transportation systems for the Games ran for 33 days, from the opening of the Athletes Village until 25, 3 February days after the closing ceremony. Approximately 64% of the athletes arrived between 1 and 6 February, and 74% left Nagano between 22 and 25 February. Transportation operations were directed from a transportation centre situated at the center of the organizing committee. Two regional transportation hubs were created in Hakuba and Yamanouchi, as well as a traffic center for vehicles in Karuizawa. The media, as well as representatives of different national Olympic committees generally were transported by car, from their arrival airport, usually Tokyo but also Kansai and Nagoya, to their lodging, either in Nagano or Karuizawa. The members of the IOC traveled by Shinkansen.
  To improve transportation for spectators, the number and hours of local trains were extended. During the heaviest traffic days, more cars were put in service and up to 68 parking areas, for 8,000 vehicles were at available for various Olympic delegations, and another 17 parking areas for 23,000 cars for spectators. Approximately 1,200 vehicles had navigation systems which transmitted their locations in real time.
  As one of the principal aims of the Games was to respect nature, many vehicles were considered ecological or semi-ecological. In addition, there were more than 100 electric vehicles, hybrid mini-buses and other environmentally-friendly vehicles.
caption: Jōshin-etsu Expressway in Ueda, Nagano.
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