Megan Goodwin, Director, Interactive Rights Management shares her thoughts on London as a smart city and the hurdles it faces.
Controlling the crowds
Digital consultancy IRM (Interactive Rights Management) is working with a number of European cities and cultural bodies on exploiting apps and other technology to manage tourist movements to control crowds and avoid crushes. It does this with the help of data from transport authorities, police, museums, retailers and other sources. It has its own ideas on the challenge London faces in becoming a true smart city.
Megan Goodwin, director of IRM, says: “London has massive challenges on the route to becoming truly ‘smart’: Its size; its complexity; the age of much of its historic centre; the crowds of tourists, commuters and Londoners; the traffic; and the competing demands of the different companies that operate in it.
“It would be a lot easier if it were a new city, like the ones being built out in the Middle East or the Far East, or if it were a smaller European city like Copenhagen or Barcelona – still historic, but compact.”
