almost-blue.co.uk

Great News! Each ticket sold for the London 2012 Olympic games was going to be issued with a one day travel card. This seem a truly excellent idea, not just that it would have meant not waiting ages in a massive queue for a tube ticket, as smaller queues for tickets would have meant less of a threat to terrorism.

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Yet it now seems that there maybe a U-turn on this with LOCOG (The organiser of the 2012 games) now stating that this is likely to prove too expensive if they were to issue Oyster cards allowing people to travel all across London. They have cited cost as the main reason as it is only a temporary event.

However it strikes me that one of the key points of any Olympic games is also to enable the host city to benefit as much as possible. Surely the cost of issuing Oyster cards would be outweighed by the amount of money that visitors would then spend elsewhere in London? E.g. If they watch athletics in the morning then they may well go and visit another attraction such as the London eye in the afternoon. With out a free travelcard then they are more likely to just go back to their hotel. Or they will they go and buy a tube ticket, thus adding further to the queues of people waiting to buy their tube tickets to get to the afternoons events.

People will then get fed up of queuing and go back to their hotel instead.

The way London 2012 handles its transport will make or break the 2012 Games – If the transport system fails on the first day due to huge queues for tube tickets then I predict by the second day they will have no choice other than to open the whole tube system for free for the duration of the games or risk a meltdown of public and worldwide opinion.

Lastly from a terrorism point of view the last thing London 2012 needs is large groups of people (soft targets) queuing. If you found this article of interest then why not vist the authors site on London 2012 News. For a refreshing look at every aspect of the games then join the free 2012 Forum.