CHICAGO — When Event Transportation Systems (ETS) was in its early days back in the 90s, transportation management technology was limited, and the team was mostly focused on the efficiency of how buses and shuttles were used.
Then, in the 2010s, with the advent of smart devices and advanced GPS equipment, ETS began an innovation campaign around technology for clients, attendees and its operations team. Now, ETS has come full circle and is re-invigorated in its focus on efficiency to ensure their clients are getting the most bang for their buck with shuttle services in a world of rising costs.
“Technology for convention shuttles has historically been viewed as a luxury,” said Carson Hotard, Vice President of ETS. “We want to make it standard, with ETS being the gold standard. Our clients, attendees and operations staff should always have information at their fingertips that removes any unknowns or uncertainty from the shuttle experience.”
In order to offer tools that are specifically designed for event organizers, ETS developed their own technology stack from the ground up.
“The biggest challenge was that nothing like this existed before; we had to create it from scratch,” Hotard said. “There are dozens of fleet management and asset tracking systems out there, but we needed a system that would allow for route- and hotel-stop customization, real-time user experience and an integrated operations management platform.”
Building a Technology Ecosystem
ETS now has a full suite of in-house technology tools to serve the needs of their clients and team. These tools all work together to create a large ecosystem focused on supporting event transportation logistics.
“The routes, stops and schedule for the event are constructed in a back-end portal, which initiates a custom data flow process for every single event. During operation, telemetry data from GPS devices is fed into cloud-based processing, which is then distributed to the various applications,” Hotard said. “Our Next-Shuttle app isolates information pertinent to the attendees, only showing them their hotel, their stop location, and the next bus coming to them with an ETA time. Our Shuttle-Tracker app is a full-service operations management system, allowing for not only bus tracking of the entire fleet, but also digital data entry for passenger logging.”
With customized tools for event planners, ETS’ technology offerings help to increase efficiency through the data they collect.
“There are a multitude of ways our technology improves efficiency, but by far the greatest advantage is the seamless integration of passenger counts and GPS data,” Hotard said. “Our staff can not only see all of their buses in real-time, but they can also get instantaneous metrics on passenger flow and route turn times, which helps them with bus management throughout the day.”
New ETS Tech
The newest offering from ETS is its Book-&-Ride platform, which allows attendees to book a ride on a scheduled airport shuttle at a better price point than other airport transportation options like Uber. ETS has sold more than12,000 airport shuttle tickets so far this year.
“From a cost point of view, it’s a win for everyone. Our clients get a per-ticket shuttle rebate, attendees get service at least half the cost of an uber, and we get more overall shuttle revenue,” Hotard said. In regard to the necessity of such a service, he says “It is more or less an issue depending on the size of the meeting and which city they are in, and we help our clients figure out if it is right for their meeting. In cities with costly airport trips and no viable public transit, this is often the only cost-efficient way to getting to the airport.”
Enhancing Attendee Experience
Along with solving a cost pain point for attendees with the Book-&-Ride platform, ETS is also focused on using its technology to enhance the overall experience of event-goers.
“For example, the ETS Next-Shuttle app takes all of the anxiety out of the shuttle experience for attendees. We isolate only the information the attendee wants to know, which is where exactly they catch the bus, where the next one is and when it is arriving,” Hotard said. “We also have the ability to provide notifications to attendees about service disruptions due to street closures, protests, parades, or anything else going on in the city.”
Enhancements to its tools are both customer- and operations-driven. The team uses feedback from attendees and clients to make decisions on how to improve its technology, what tools would be useful to build, and how to ensure the tools can be used by any team member.
“Many of the user experience features of ETS Next-Shuttle came from attendee and meeting planner feedback. When building the operations management system, we did beta testing for over a year, working with dozens of staff members across all technology competency backgrounds,” Hotard said.
Looking Ahead
Currently, ETS is in the development phase of upgrading its back-end systems to improve speed and reliability — a necessity as technology progresses.
Hotard shared that the next project for ETS will likely be more client-focused, giving event teams more insight into how the shuttles are running.
“Transportation has always been a key factor in the success of a show, but I think technology will really make it part of the attendee experience,” Hotard said. “Shuttles are the first and last interaction attendees have each day with a show, so it is important to start and finish the attendee experience on a high note. Giving attendees real-time information at their fingertips will ensure the success of that goal.”
