1. List movements, not trips
Start by writing every movement the group makes, in order, across the whole programme — arrival transfers, daily loops, evening events, departures. Planners often list only the airport legs and discover the rest later.
A movement is a group of people, going from somewhere to somewhere, at a time. Write them all down even if the times are approximate.
2. Count per movement, not per group
Total headcount is the least useful number in group transportation. Fifty people can be one coach or five separate movements depending on how they travel.
- How many passengers are in each individual movement
- Whether the same people repeat across days
- Which movements must run simultaneously
- Whether any passengers need accessible transportation
3. Deal with luggage honestly
Luggage decides vehicle size at least as often as headcount does, and it is the detail most consistently underestimated.
- Checked bags per passenger on airport legs
- Booth materials, displays or product samples for exhibitors
- Team equipment, instruments or sports gear
- Anything that cannot be handled by passengers themselves
4. Pin the fixed times
Every programme has moments that cannot move: a session start, a ceremony, a flight check-in cut-off, a venue access window. Transportation timing is built backwards from those, so identify them explicitly.
- Session, meeting or ceremony start times
- Venue access and loading-zone windows
- Hotel check-in and check-out timings
- Flight departure times and required check-in
5. Map hotels and geography
In San Diego the question is which properties group into which route. In Los Angeles and Orange County it is distance and time of day. Both need the same input: the property list and roughly how many guests are at each.
6. Nominate contacts
Every wave needs one person the driver can reach, and the programme needs one person who owns transportation decisions on the day. Two named people solve most travel-day problems before they escalate.
7. Plan departure day properly
Departures compress. Everyone tends to leave inside a narrower window than they arrived in, which usually means more vehicles at once. Plan it in the same request as arrivals rather than treating it as an afterthought.
8. Send it all in one request
One request covering the whole programme produces a better plan than several separate ones, because the movements can be sequenced against each other rather than quoted in isolation.
Common questions
What if I cannot answer everything on this list?
Send what you have. The checklist is the ideal, not a requirement — approximate information is enough to build a working plan and refine it later.
Does one request cover multiple cities?
Yes. San Diego, Los Angeles and Orange County legs can be coordinated inside one programme and one quote.
Ready to put this into a plan?
Send your dates, group size and itinerary and you will get a coordinated plan back — not a vehicle list.