Transporting 1,050 para athletes

Managing a fleet of 70 vehicles

Recruiting 4 managers and 16 ground co-ordinators

The Challenge

The World Para Athletics Championships were held at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London this July.

First Travel Solutions (FTS) were approached by Corporate & Sporting Events (CSE) to assist with the safe and efficient movement of all para athletes from every country competing.

Transport requirements would be complex, involving 7 different hotel locations all based in central London.

FTS were to provide morning and evening transportation for the para athletes. Services started at 07.00/09.00 hours depending on the day and would cease at 23.00 hours.

The Solution

The logistics behind an event like this is significant. FTS had staff based in London from March onwards. Their time was spent building the timetables for the transport requirements as well as sourcing vehicles and drivers.

FTS then looked to recruit 4 managers and 16 ground co-ordinators. The managers were responsible for delivering the daily transport plan with the ground co-ordinators managing the service every day from all 7-hotel locations. It was their responsibility to ensure that no athlete was missed and there was plenty of capacity at either end of the routes.

The team was operational in London from 10th until 23rd July. This included a control room based at  the Hilton Hotel at ExCeL.

The Result

This was a major project for FTS and it took months of internal planning and organisation.

However thanks to a consolidated team effort by FTS the transport and travel arrangements for this iconic event worked really well.

FTS managed a fleet of 70 vehicles and also provided 15 buses within that fleet.

In addition to this, 1,050 para athletes were transported over the duration of the event from 92 different nations.

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