After there were problems for the athletes getting to events and since 1996 every country has had an Olympic Lane to speed the journey for Olympians and their minions. The Olympic Lane is now open amongst some furore. Not only has there been full-on traffic chaos with the worst traffic hold-ups London has ever seen but a coach load of athletes ended up getting lost for four hours despite the Olympic Lane being in place.
There have been some rumblings that there is going to be an Olympic Lane boycott, or should that be a boycott on not driving in the Olympic Lane as some UK drivers have muted that if everyone drives in the Olympic Lane then “they can’t fine us all”. The problem with this particular stance, is “Oh yes they can” and that no movement gets 100% anyway so it is unlikely that anyone is going to be first to start.
The Olympic Lane is open from 6am until midnight both ways and for many this is a folly. There will be certain times of the day when the Olympic Lane will be essential and it almost appears lazy on behalf of the Olympics organisers not to consider the best times for the Lane to be open. If only they had thought about using GPS Vehicle Tracking to not only design the opening times, but also to monitor the Olympic Lanes during the games and make changes to when they are open. For GPS Vehicle Tracking would have made these two things possible.
London knew they were having the Olympics way back in 2005, could the Olympic Committee not have thought about levels of traffic and travel times at various points in the day using GPS Vehicle Tracking to put forward a more practical schedule for the Olympic Lane to be open? The benefits of vehicle tracking on planning road systems may have been overlooked by the Olympic Committee but it does not mean that your company has to.
For those companies who use GPS Vehicle Tracking in their company vehicles, the Olympics is definitely a time when they can be put to good use. Of course they dissuade company drivers, who may be of the “they can’t fine us all” brigade from using the Olympic Lane and landing you with a £130 fine because “Oh yes they can”. If your company drivers use the Olympic Lane the impact is not just financial and could harm the reputation of your firm. It only takes one fool and many companies do unfortunately have at least one in their midst.
GPS vehicle tracking is not just useful to dissuade errant drivers but also in supporting your drivers to find the best way around London during the Olympics and lose as little time as possible on their journey as a result of the Olympic Lane and ensuing traffic problems. GPS vehicle tracking can be used to reliably analyse journey times and know exactly where particular traffic hotspots are during the Olympic Games.
Traffic problems may also encourage your drivers to speed to make up for lost time leading again to some fines as well as a higher driver incident rate; GPS vehicle tracking is a simple way to prevent your drivers from speeding whilst ensuring them that you know the roads are difficult.
GPS Tracking can improve your staff productivity as well as significantly reducing your fuel costs and can make driving for the next few weeks a hell of a lot easier for your employees. London 2012 has a cable car worth millions of pounds to transport people from one stadium to another, could this not have been considered in conjunction with road travel to make life easier?
