London's population will grow by about half during this summer's Olympic Games. Although the city's permanent residents might be less than thrilled by the influx of people, the visitors are likely excited, as they are not just planning to watch the Games, but visit museums, see shows, attend concerts, and otherwise enjoy London life.
To accommodate the influx of out-of-towners, officials have been encouraging Londoners to alter their usual travel plans and will be tracking traffic patterns to issue real-time alerts. Transport for London Director of Games Mark Evers told British tech site V3 that the group will combine info from Oyster cards, CCTV cameras, and aggregated and anonymized phone data to accomplish the task. All are urged to use public transportation. Toward that end, the city also has a new train, the Javelin, which runs from central London to the Olympic Park in seven minutes and can transport 25,000 passengers per hour.
Visitors themselves will want to take measures so that they can navigate like a native. (No one wants to end up like Olympic hurdler Kerron Clement, who tweeted while stuck on a bus from Heathrow to the Olympic Village, "Um, so we've been lost on the road for 4hrs. Not a good first impression London.")
Luckily, tourists can take advantage of an array of options, from official apps that will help them maneuver through Olympic Park to tools that the locals use. Using this tech, they'll make sure they catch each Olympic event, nab a table at Momo, and hail a cab without raising a finger; all while keeping their credit card info safe and even some cash in their pockets.
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Via PCMag