Unlike the taxi services dependent on GPS, London's black cab drivers rely only on their memory to navigate the streets. Reuters
Unlike the taxi services dependent on GPS, London's black cab drivers rely only on their memory to navigate the streets. Reuters
Unlike the taxi services dependent on GPS, London's black cab drivers rely only on their memory to navigate the streets. Reuters
Unlike the taxi services dependent on GPS, London's black cab drivers rely only on their memory to navigate the streets. Reuters

Exercising your brain is the best way to avoid accidents. Just ask London's black cab drivers


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As someone who travels far too much, I really enjoy any hack or app that eases my trips. The convenience of being able to order and pay for a car with my phone when I land in a new place is definitely something I enjoy a lot. But recently I had a couple of not so great experiences with Uber drivers who asked me for my phone to use Waze or Google maps because their own data plan had expired.

Without a navigation system, they were unable to deliver the service I was paying for.

This is the kind of unfortunate experience that is unlikely to happen if you go to London and take a black cab. To get you to your destination, London taxi drivers rely on their brains, not on apps or GPS. One of the reasons they do not need digital help to find their way is the training they undergo and the test they have to pass to get their taxi licence. Known as "The Knowledge", it is by far the hardest test in the world for taxi drivers. The amount of information one is expected to remember is simply astonishing.

To prepare for the test, drivers need to have fully memorised 25,000 London streets and roads located within a six-mile radius of Trafalgar Square. Add on top of this 20,000 points such as monuments, hospitals, police stations, theatres, shops and schools, and then you start understanding why The Knowledge’s success rate is as low as the test to join the United States Navy SEALs.

It takes between two to four years for drivers to complete The Knowledge, following several oral appearances. Preparing for those appearances is a full-time occupation, requiring candidates to drive around London on scooters and to study maps day and night. During the last oral interviews, in addition to the locations of theatres, drivers are also expected to know what shows are playing there.

Personally, it amazes me that people can memorise all of this and pass the test. But some do. So what makes the brains of London taxi drivers so special?

Several neuroscientists have tried to answer this question over the past 20 years thanks to structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging – big brain scanners one can find in hospitals that allow us not only to measure the volume but also to track changes of activity in brain areas.

In 1997, a group of London-based researchers led by Eleanor Maguire observed increased activity in the right hippocampus of licensed London taxi drivers as they were recalling a complex route. Dr Maguire and her colleagues concluded that this region of the brain known to contribute to memory processes “is involved in the processing of spatial layouts established over long time courses”.

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In subsequent studies, researchers found that the brains of London taxi drivers were physically different compared to other people. The volume of their posterior hippocampus was not only bigger than what was measured in non-taxi drivers but correlated positively with the number of years of they drove a taxi.

Similar differences were also found when comparing the brains of taxi and bus drivers. The latter, following a fixed route every day, were not relying on their visual memory in the way taxi drivers did, and the volume of some parts of their hippocampus was not as big as their peers driving taxis.

Where it gets even more interesting is when other researchers from the UK, Switzerland, Germany and Bahrain found that when a driver follows a satellite navigation system, the demand on the hippocampus is lower than navigating without digital assistance. And the researchers suggested that relying on navigation assistance such as Waze could lead to a decrease in the volume of the hippocampus.

So is the use of GPS while we drive going to make our brains shrink, as some concluded after the discoveries of the last study? Not really.

But memory needs to be exercised on a daily basis and everything we do to keep it active is good. It is interesting to realise that we now have a tendency to rely less on our neural memory and more on the memory of our smart devices and computers. Telephone numbers are stored in our phones and we use navigation apps even during our daily commutes, sometimes to be informed about traffic, but some other time because we are just lazy.

As I discussed a few weeks ago in this column, there is a global increase in the number of car accidents due to the use of smart phones and other digital devices while driving. Distracted driving has become a major road safety risk not only because of texting and driving, but also because of the increasing number of distractions provided by the dashboard of cars, such as GPS.

To my knowledge there is no comparative data available so far that would indicate that a taxi driver relying exclusively on his or her memory is less likely to end up in a road crash, as compared to drivers not keeping their eyes on the road all the time because they are checking their GPS.

But this is something worth keeping in mind the next time you need a ride.

Professor Olivier Oullier is the president of Emotiv, a neuroscientist and a DJ. He served as global head of strategy in health and healthcare and is a member of the executive committee of the World Economic Forum

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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
New schools in Dubai
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Cyberbullying can take place on various platforms such as messages, on social media, on group chats, or games.

Parents should watch out for behavioural changes in their children.

When children are being bullied they they may be feel embarrassed and isolated, so parents should watch out for signs of signs of depression and anxiety

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A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
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1971 Abu Dhabi National Oil Company established

1980 Ruwais Housing Complex built, located 10 kilometres away from industrial plants

1982 120,000 bpd capacity Ruwais refinery complex officially inaugurated by the founder of the UAE Sheikh Zayed

1984 Second phase of Ruwais Housing Complex built. Today the 7,000-unit complex houses some 24,000 people.  

1985 The refinery is expanded with the commissioning of a 27,000 b/d hydro cracker complex

2009 Plans announced to build $1.2 billion fertilizer plant in Ruwais, producing urea

2010 Adnoc awards $10bn contracts for expansion of Ruwais refinery, to double capacity from 415,000 bpd

2014 Ruwais 261-outlet shopping mall opens

2014 Production starts at newly expanded Ruwais refinery, providing jet fuel and diesel and allowing the UAE to be self-sufficient for petrol supplies

2014 Etihad Rail begins transportation of sulphur from Shah and Habshan to Ruwais for export

2017 Aldar Academies to operate Adnoc’s schools including in Ruwais from September. Eight schools operate in total within the housing complex.

2018 Adnoc announces plans to invest $3.1 billion on upgrading its Ruwais refinery 

2018 NMC Healthcare selected to manage operations of Ruwais Hospital

2018 Adnoc announces new downstream strategy at event in Abu Dhabi on May 13

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French Open (1 title) - 2009 bt Robin Soderling

Wimbledon (8 titles) - 2003 bt Mark Philippoussis; 2004 bt Andy Roddick; 2005 bt Andy Roddick; 2006 bt Rafael Nadal; 2007 bt Rafael Nadal; 2009 bt Andy Roddick; 2012 bt Andy Murray; 2017 bt Marin Cilic

US Open (5 titles) - 2004 bt Lleyton Hewitt; 2005 bt Andre Agassi; 2006 bt Andy Roddick; 2007 bt Novak Djokovic; 2008 bt Andy Murray

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Preliminaries:

Nouredine Samir (UAE) v Sheroz Kholmirzav (UZB); Lucas Porst (SWE) v Ellis Barboza (GBR); Mouhmad Amine Alharar (MAR) v Mohammed Mardi (UAE); Ibrahim Bilal (UAE) v Spyro Besiri (GRE); Aslamjan Ortikov (UZB) v Joshua Ridgwell (GBR)

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Carlos Prates (BRA) v Dmitry Valent (BLR); Bobirjon Tagiev (UZB) v Valentin Thibaut (FRA); Arthur Meyer (FRA) v Hicham Moujtahid (BEL); Ines Es Salehy (BEL) v Myriame Djedidi (FRA); Craig Coakley (IRE) v Deniz Demirkapu (TUR); Artem Avanesov (ARM) v Badreddine Attif (MAR); Abdulvosid Buranov (RUS) v Akram Hamidi (FRA)

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Asian Featherweight: Zakaria El Jamari (UAE) v Phillip Delarmino (PHI)