By Jonathan Potter, Chief Communications Officer, BusPas Inc.
Twice a decade, the world gathers to witness two of the greatest athletic spectacles on the planet: the summer Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup. These are celebrations of unity, spirit, and competition—and also of logistical complexity. As cities prepare to welcome millions of visitors, a hidden race begins long before the first whistle blows. It’s the race to adapt, modernize, and build systems resilient enough to withstand the extraordinary, and innovative enough to improve the everyday.
The weight of these events isn’t just in the ceremonies or the games; it’s in the unrelenting pressure on transportation systems, security infrastructure, and real-time communication networks. How a city moves, responds, and informs during those critical weeks becomes the measure not only of the event’s success, but of the city’s future.
Preparing for global events like the Olympics or the World Cup offers cities and nations a rare and powerful opportunity: to modernize their transit infrastructure under real-world pressure. It’s a live test of urban resilience, where upgrades made for the event offer a glimpse into a smarter, more connected future. What begins as preparation often becomes legacy—leaving behind systems that not only handle the peak, but improve everyday life long after the crowds go home.
In past roles, I’ve had the privilege of working behind the curtain of major transportation systems—where multilingual communication, safety enforcement, and AI integration are more than buzzwords; they’re necessities. Whether at the United Nations’ International Civil Aviation Organization, working on aviation protocols, stakeholder communications, and systems modernization, or at BusPatrol, communicating the efficacy of vision-based enforcement models and privacy compliance, one truth remains constant: smart infrastructure—driven by data, adaptable by design, and modeled for outcomes—is the only infrastructure that lasts.
Today, at BusPas—after five years of AI and micro-mobility development led by Wisseem Maazoun—that philosophy has become a scalable solution.
BusPas doesn’t just retrofit cities with devices attached to shared urban infrastructure like bus stops and benches. We bring to life a framework—an invisible yet powerful nervous system for urban spaces. Through solar-powered smart signage, edge-computing cameras, AI-powered multilingual announcements, and predictive enforcement tools, cities don’t just get smarter—they become safer, more accessible, better managed, and more prepared for everything from rush hour to opening ceremony. City administrators, urban planners, and maintenance workers gain the insights they need to maximize time, resources, and public benefit.
Global events in recent years have shown us how things can go wrong. In Rio, visitors struggled with transport signage that hadn’t kept pace with the global audience. In Tokyo, coordination between transit systems and public information channels lagged, hindered by language gaps and fragmented infrastructure. In Qatar, mobility at scale relied heavily on manual systems instead of integrated AI and automation—an approach neither sustainable nor replicable in the long term.
These failures didn’t arise from a lack of effort, but from a lack of cohesion—an absence of a system that unites mobility, communication, security, and accessibility within a single intelligent architecture.
That’s where BusPas steps in—not as a vendor, but as a strategic partner.
Imagine arriving at a transit hub in an unfamiliar country. The signage illuminates in your native language, triggered by your phone’s settings or a voice prompt. You hear an announcement, also in your language, guiding you to the correct gate. If you have a mobility challenge, the system not only offers a map of step-free paths and elevator locations—it speaks to you. For a visually impaired traveler, tactile feedback or a voice assistant provides real-time updates on route changes or delays, all powered by data processed locally, not in a distant cloud.
This isn’t science fiction. It’s already happening. BusPas infrastructure is deployed in the Greater Montreal Area, Barcelona, and New Jersey. In Los Angeles, as the city prepares for the 2028 Olympics, we are testing smart bus stops with multilingual displays, privacy-compliant AI vision cameras, sensors, and emergency communication tools. These aren’t just screens and lenses. They are nodes in a living system—capable of detecting weapons, analyzing crowd density, prioritizing transit lanes, and adapting dynamically to shifting urban needs.
The resilience of these systems lies in their autonomy and redundancy. Edge computing means that even if a network connection fails, data collection and decision-making continue uninterrupted. Even in a grid outage, solar-powered systems maintain announcements and capture enforcement footage. Designed to support both daily routines and once-in-a-decade spectacles, these systems are decentralized, fault-tolerant, and highly responsive.
For visitors, it’s seamless. For residents, it’s transformative. For cities, it’s an investment that endures beyond the event.
The 2028 Olympic Games aren’t just about medals and records—they are a test of urban capacity, safety readiness, and communications fluency. The same holds true for every World Cup host city. How cities prepare today will define how they are remembered tomorrow.
BusPas doesn’t just make infrastructure smarter—it makes it inclusive. We partner with industry leaders and local mobility firms to ensure that our deployments integrate cleanly with existing city plans. Cities don’t need to shoulder the costs alone. Through our public-private partnership model, systems are funded via enforcement revenue, digital advertising, and real-time data insights. This ensures long-term viability while relieving cities of the financial burdens that typically delay transformative projects. Our partners at Safer Smart Zones can tell at you more about this.
In Barcelona, we’re reinforcing curb enforcement and supporting digital mobility hubs to keep the city center fluid during peak hours.
“It’s an honor to partner with Transit Metropolitain of Barcelona and the Autoritat del Transport Metropolità de Barcelona to implement a groundbreaking project focusing on bus lane and bus stop violation, security enhancements and improved passenger information. This strategic partnership will bring state-of-the-art AI-integrated solutions to Barcelona’s bus stops,” said Youval Abenhaim, CEO of BusPas Inc.
With our partner EXO, our systems help transit agencies enhance incident response and scheduling through multilingual, real-time alerts. Each deployment teaches us something new—and reinforces the value of building cities that can think, adapt, and communicate in multiple languages.
Looking ahead to Toronto, Los Angeles, Boston and future host cities, the demands on transit and infrastructure will only grow more complex. Cities can no longer afford siloed solutions or last-minute fixes. The smart city era is not on the horizon—it’s already here. The question is not if cities will rise to meet it, but how.
At BusPas, we believe leadership starts with listening—to data, to the public, and to the rhythm of the street. It means designing not only for now, but for what comes after.
Because while the games will end, the city remains. And it deserves a system that rises to the occasion—every day.
