Sometimes multi-year contracts or long-term relationships with transportation management partners can lead to less scrutiny, which could cost an organization thousands of dollars.

Are you paying attention to the details when reviewing your shuttle transportation proposal for your annual convention or meeting? Do you know if your transportation management partner is actively looking for ways to keep costs down? Are you receiving detailed ridership reports each year that demonstrate evidence of system design, efficiency, and accurate planning in terms of the number of buses necessary to execute your shuttle system?

Shuttle transportation is one of the greatest expenses for organizations holding large meetings and events, and planners should be on top of the factors that impact efficiency and cost.

A reputable and experienced transportation management company should be providing planners with comprehensive data including:

1. Accurate passenger counts for the entire shuttle system and by shuttle route.  Planners can’t accurately project ridership and costs for future events without detailed passenger counts from the current year.
2. Bus utilization efficiency. It is important to understand how well the space on your shuttle buses is being used. If buses are only averaging a handful of passengers per trip, then they are not being used efficiently.
3. Comparison of planned ridership vs actual ridership.  This information provides direct evidence of your transportation partner’s ability to predict ridership based on their experience planning in your host city coupled with ridership data from previous years.
4. Value Metrics. Your shuttle company should be breaking down your shuttle cost on a per capita basis. This is a key piece of data that planners can take to their senior leadership and demonstrate their value in keeping costs down for an expensive element of their meeting or trade show. 

In addition, it’s important to find out if your transportation partner has adjusted the number of required buses leading up to your meeting based on hotel pick-up.  If your hotel pick-up is less than expected, and your partner is not modifying the bus count, then you might be paying more than you should be.

If your transportation management partner is not providing this critical data or adjusting shuttle specifications in response to revised hotel metrics, then you may not have a complete understanding of how well your shuttle system is operating, and you could be overpaying for your service by tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

Event Transportation Systems (ETS) is a trusted transportation management partner to hundreds of organizations, capitalizing on all opportunities to reduce costs while providing outstanding efficient transportation solutions. ETS has been providing transportation management solutions for large association and corporate meetings since 2002 and continues to innovate with its service offerings and technology solutions. You can rely on ETS for shuttle systems planning and management, airport transfers, VIP sedan services, special event & tour transportation, and shuttle advertising. 

Contact us today to see how we can help support your next event, convention, meeting or conference.