Transportation from and to your location largely determines the success of your event. You should definitely avoid long queues and delays. How do you achieve that? We give you 6 tips.
Make the shuttle service as comfortable as possible for your attendees. Don't keep them waiting, make sure it's a short ride and pamper them with a friendly service. These tips will help you on your way:
1. Customise your means of transportation to your attendees
Try to gather as much information as possible about your attendees and their transportation needs, beforehand. About their age, mobility, luggage... Do they all fit in a big bus together or is it better to divide them over smaller shuttles? Based on this information you choose the right type of transportation.
2. Provide a surplus amount of seats
That way, the bus does not have to be full before it leaves and passengers don't have to wait for hours until everyone has gotten on. Especially when people go back home, they want to leave as quickly as possible. If you let the buses go back and forth several times, the queues will be shorter.
3. Keep a spare bus on stand-by
That is always practical for unexpected circumstances. If you suddenly have to transport a VIP. Or an attendee unexpectedly has to get somewhere. If you have a spare bus on stand-by, this will be an easy resort without messing up your normal planning.
4. Coordinate your planning on timing, not on distance
Even though the distance between the bus stop and the event location isn't that far, it may take a while before that distance has been covered. So it's better to think about the time the bus needs to cover the distance, to turn and to let passengers get on and off. Test your route. As much as possible at the same time and the same circumstances as when your event genuinely takes place. Take the weather, traffic, other events in the vicinity and safety into account. Use a chronometer, drive back and forth various times and calculate the average time.
5. Use friendly and professional staff
Appoint someone who is responsible for the transportation. He will control things and communicates with the drivers and the supervisory staff. Give the supervisors easily recognisable clothing, so that they are easily accessible.
6. Pay attention to details
Let the bus cool down or heat up long before departure, so that your passengers travel at ideal conditions. Provide appropriate music or a short event presentation in the shuttles. Ask whether the temperature is right using the intercom. Nice extras: provide bottles of water, umbrellas and track down the owners of lost objects.
