We are a tour operator and organize cycling and hiking trips for individual guests (including luggage transport and rental bikes). We are therefore looking for a solution in the areas of logistics, fleet management, and dispatching to handle the respective logistical organization.
Our logistics planning consists of three components:
Luggage transport from accommodation to accommodation
During the travel season, our guests can arrive at almost all of our cycling and hiking trails (mostly within Germany) on a daily basis. Each guest travels individually and stays in an average of five to seven hotels during their trip. This means that we have to transport the luggage of hundreds of guests to their next accommodation every day. We use our own drivers with our own vehicles for some of this, and for some we outsource the jobs to local partners (e.g., taxi companies). So while the guests cycle or hike the day's stage to the next location, the drivers have to deliver the luggage to the next hotel within a specified time. It also happens that a driver has to drive to different accommodations in one location. The exact number of pieces of luggage is not known, but each guest is allowed to have a maximum of two pieces of luggage transported.
Bicycle rental
Guests can rent bicycles from us for their cycling tours. We have our own pool of bikes in two depots and also rent bikes from partners on some cycle paths. In any case, it must be planned that the right bike (touring bike, e-bike, hub, chain, women's or men's) in the right frame size is available for the guest at the first hotel on the day of arrival. After the trip, the bike must be picked up at the last hotel, serviced, and cleaned, and then made available for the next guest or transported back to the partner. The transport of all bikes to and from the hotels is our responsibility and is either handled by us (using our own vehicle with a rear rack and/or bike trailer) or handed over to partners. It may happen that a guest has a breakdown during the trip and needs a replacement bike. We therefore need to know at all times which bike is where and when it is booked again.
Passenger transfer
At the end of their trip, guests have the option of booking a transfer back to their starting point. As a rule, luggage and, if applicable, bikes must also be transported at the same time. Here, too, this is either done by our own drivers and vehicles or handed over to local partners.
All these components are currently planned largely manually, which is why we need a lot of lead time and can only accept short-term bookings to a limited extent. We therefore need a software solution that supports us in planning these processes, automates as many of the work steps as possible, and, above all, digitizes them. The aim is also to bundle the individual orders as much as possible in order to be able to work as cost-effectively as possible, taking into account the respective framework conditions (such as vehicle capacity). We also want and need to adapt to the increasingly short-term bookings. Currently, we only offer luggage transport in conjunction with a travel booking. However, there are considerations and requests from customers and partners to offer luggage transport as a separate service, independent of travel bookings.
An interface to the internal booking software Tourmingo must be possible.
Approximately two to four software workstations are planned. MS Windows systems are used.
| Quantity | |
|---|---|
| Researched solutions | 22 |
| Selected potentially relevant solutions (of which published) | 9 (1) |
| Sent e-mails (questions, queries) and telephone calls | 55 |
| E-mails received from vendors | 12 |
| Direct responses to the IT project | 1 |
| Responses classified as relevant | 2 |