Encouraging smart travel
Digital travel assistant You . Smart . Thing . ( YST ) presents event attendees with bespoke low-carbon travel plans while providing organisers with valuable data . YST CEO Chris Thompson discusses the platform ’ s development and how it has helped events such as the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games to reduce the environmental impact of audience travel
Words : Christopher Barrett
Research by sustainability specialists has repeatedly shown that audience travel is the biggest environmental challenge that live events face . In the case of festivals , Julie ’ s Bicycle established that it accounts for 80 % of emissions while a survey by A Greener Festival found that 61 % of respondents usually drive to them .
Chris Thompson launched YST in 2014 to help event organisers identify audience travel behaviour , promote sustainable travel options and generate additional revenue on the back of data . The platform was recently used for the Commonwealth Games and other clients include the Rugby League World Cup .
The platform can be embedded within web , mobile , ticket booking
Chris Thompson and customer relationship management systems . For users it means they can easily access tailored routes to events with data including the journey duration , CO2 emissions , location of electric vehicle charging points and even the predicted calories burnt if cycling or walking . Of obvious importance to event operators is the ability to include event coach and shuttlebus services within the wider transport network options shown to users .
YST CEO Chris Thompson says the first major event to use YST was Godiva Festival in Coventry , and since then it has been used for more than 1,000 venues and events of all shapes and sizes . In terms of its evolution , he says by far the biggest development was the introduction of a carbon calculator that enables clients to capture , monitor , and influence the level of carbon emissions generated by visitor travel .
“ In the run up to the
Commonwealth Games we worked with West Midlands 5G , Sport England and Connected Places Catapult to research and develop extensions to our core platform that enable privacy policy compliant sharing of people ’ s travel requirements across the events ecosystem , including anonymised data being provided to transport operators to help forecast and manage capacity .
“ This means everyone on the events ecosystem can deliver personalised travel assistance and wayfinding , monitor and influence responsible travel choices , and whenever possible , promote lowcarbon and active travel routes . We ’ re now extending the service via a fully documented and supported application programming interface to enable deep integration with ticket retail and customer relationship management platforms .”
For the Commonwealth Games , YST enabled organisers to emphasise the availability and location , and encourage the use of , facilities including free public transport and park and ride options as well as free , staffed , and secure cycle parking .
Says Thompson , “ In the lead-up to the opening ceremony , travel forecast data from the You . Smart . Thing . platform showed the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games was already set to be the most environmentally friendly UK-based major international event outside London since the advent of the motorcar , with less than 18 % of visitors opting to drive . This represents a step-change in visitor travel behaviour .”
l Chris Thompson will be among the speakers at the UK Events Summit on 26 October at Manchester ’ s Emirates Old Trafford .
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