(Credit: Paradise City Festival Travel Assistant, 2025 /Facebook)

Event-specific travel planning

Late-night events can create transport demand that does not align with transport provision. Without clear information, attendees may be uncertain whether viable transport options exist once events finish.

YST allows event organisers and transport partners to configure bespoke late-night transport services directly into the journey planner, alongside existing public transport networks. This enables users to plan return journeys in advance and receive timely reminders, such as notifications to leave in time for the last train.

At Paradise City Festival 2025 in Belgium, the platform integrated specially commissioned night trains into the festival travel assistant. Attendees could plan and secure their return journeys ahead of time, providing reassurance that transport options would be available after the event. The night trains subsequently sold out, demonstrating strong engagement with the travel assistant.

Measurable Modal Shift

The trial delivered a measurable impact across audience travel behaviour.

Engagement with the Travel Assistant increased by more than 150% compared to the same period the previous year. More importantly, data showed a clear shift toward more sustainable modes of transport:

• Public transport journeys increased from 24% to 38.3%.
• Cycling journeys rose from 2% to 5%.
• Private car use reduced to 15.7% of planned trips.

Post-event surveys supported these findings, with around 50% of respondents reporting public transport as their chosen mode. These results highlight how data-led insight can support more effective travel demand management while enhancing the overall visitor experience.

Real-Time Carbon Reduction

The project also demonstrated how integrated travel solutions can deliver measurable environmental outcomes.

During the trial, the average carbon footprint per planned journey was approximately 4 kg CO₂e, significantly lower than the YST platform average of around 10 kg CO₂e. This provided Birmingham Hippodrome with a clear, evidence-based view of impact, enabling more robust sustainability reporting and informed decision-making.

For venues, this level of insight brings confidence and accountability to an area that has historically been difficult to quantify.

Panels and keynotes

Leading industry voices on how travel is transforming visitor experience for major events – streamlining delivery, reducing emissions, and unlocking revenue

Breakout sessions

Facilitated small group discussions to share what’s working, where the challenges are and what the live events sector needs to focus to move the dial

YST Service Desk & Partners

Meet the YST product team and selected supply chain partners, each with a dedicated presence, ready to discuss requirements and explore opportunities

Networking

An opportunity to swap notes on best practice with industry leaders and supply chain partners throughout the day, with drinks and networking to close

The Venue

Arboretum is an independent members’ club just off Trafalgar Square in Central London, founded with environmental consciousness at its core. A space built around sustainability, community and forward-thinking people — which is exactly why we chose it.

Arboretum, 2A Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0HF
Nearest tube: Leicester Square (0.1 mi)

Plan your journey to Ģ����ý. Live

We would not be doing our job if we did not make it easy to plan your trip in advance. Use the Ģ����ý. Live Travel Assistant below to find the best route to Arboretum.

Analytics: Access Routes Chart

It’s always been possible to see how people are travelling. Now it’s possible to see exactly where they’re heading once they arrive.

The dashboard now shows which specific access routes audiences are planning to use, which car park, which entrance, which drop-off zone.

For venues and events managing multiple access points, this is genuinely useful. Where to put signage, where to allocate staff, where the pinch points might be.

Less guesswork, better decisions.

Understanding Dashboard Data

The dashboard shows modal split percentages and carbon figures. But what do those numbers actually mean in practice?

Tom Yiangou, Client Development Manager, has written a guide on making dashboard data as valuable as possible, covering how to set realistic modal shift targets, compare events against national travel averages, measure which communications increase engagement, and turn data into carbon reduction evidence for sustainability reports.

Growing the Team and Looking Ahead

We’re pleased to welcome Hannah George to the ‘Ģ����ý.’ team as Client Development Manager, joining Emma Gibbons and Tom Yiangou in Client Development. Hannah brings a background in sustainability strategy for live events and music venues.

The YST team now spans the UK, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, USA and Australia, and this quarter has been a busy one, with the team out on the road attending and speaking at industry events, visiting clients and experiencing events first-hand. As we move into the second half of the year, schedules are looking full for all the right reasons, with a packed calendar of client events, deployments and industry moments ahead.

Different cities, different time zones, same ambition.

(Image: Getty Images)

It’s Not Just a Race Day – It’s a Destination

Here’s what racecourse event organisers already know but perhaps underestimate: a significant proportion of their visitors don’t just come for the racing. They come and they stay. Around a third of Cheltenham festival visitors arrive at least a day before the event [6] and stay on afterwards. Attendees sleep in local accommodation, eat in local restaurants, spend money in local shops. The racecourse is the anchor, but the destination is the whole region.

This is destination tourism in live action, and it creates a powerful argument for a different kind of partnership. When a racecourse works collaboratively with local councils, transport operators, hotels, and local businesses to create a seamless, integrated visitor journey, everyone wins, more people come, more people stay, and more people come back.

The challenge (and the opportunity) is coordination. Getting all those stakeholders on the same page to better understand how visitors are travelling, where the pinch points are, and what would make the journey better. That’s exactly what the YST platform helps event organisers to do.

The London Marathon Events Parallel: What Running Figured Out

London Marathon Events (LME) has demonstrated how major sporting events can use travel planning and visitor experience management to enhance the participant and spectator experience, as well as an event’s environmental sustainability credentials – a key consideration for stakeholders, such as host destination residents, local councils and event organisers. Coordinated bespoke shuttle-bus services, pre-event travel information directly from the LME comms team, and tailored multi-modal travel planning don’t just reduce congestion, they reduce emissions, stress, and they make a first-time visitor feel like a welcome guest.

Horse racing has an even richer engagement opportunity. The social fabric of race days, from the fashion to the tradition and shared excitement means visitors want to be part of something, from the moment they consider attending, through the build-up, en route travel, to the journey back home, and sharing their experience post-event.

(Image: London Marathon Events)

Redefining Race Day

Horse racing faces a few reputational challenges, often countered through state-of-the-art animal welfare standards and a regulatory framework that has helped shape responsible betting policy. An aging fanbase, however, means that the sport cannot rely on tradition alone to recruit the next generation of racegoers. Gen Z, a sustainability-aware generation that racecourses are eager to attract, is increasingly drawn to events that show clear environmental and social responsibility.

As a Gen Z myself, my first exposure to horse racing wasn’t through my lifelong passion for the sport, but instead, it was a day out with friends tied to a social occasion and live music. Concerts at the races are fantastic at drawing in younger crowds who might not otherwise attend a sporting event, combining live sport with the atmosphere of a festival. This is ‘sportainment’, and it’s quietly reshaping what race day looks and feels like.

The commercial logic makes sense: a broader, more diverse audience means more tickets sold, stronger sponsorship value, and a long-term fanbase. But along with this comes a transport dimension that is rarely discussed yet is just as important. When entertainment spans across the event day or people stay for a concert after the last race, peak travel demand is spread across a longer window. That easing of the egress spike is not just a smoother experience for racegoers, but it also reduces pressure on roads, rail services and shuttle infrastructure, lowering the cost and complexity of transport operations for the organsier. Done well, sportainment doesn’t just sell more tickets, it addresses event egress bottlenecks, reduces peak demand and eases pressure on infrastructure.

The Racecourse Association has noted that 40% of racing fans are women, which is twice the average across other sports. Audience diversification is already happening. The opportunity to serve new audiences better, from the moment they decide to come along to the moment they get home, is what will define the future of the sport.

What Better Looks Like:

Imagine a racegoer who buys their ticket and immediately receives a personalised low-carbon travel plan from the exact location they’re coming from. They book their train and reserve their shuttle bus from the station via the officially recommended and integrated services. On the morning of the race, they receive a push notification confirming their transport is set and letting them know which gate to use for their specific ticket type. On the way home, they know exactly which gate to depart from, and the event organiser is able to look at the data, and manage a departure system that has people moving smoothly in line with their itinerary, rather than facing frustrating queues as they try to get away.

The racegoer doesn’t just have a better day and a better mood; they tell people about it, they come back next year, and most importantly, they bring someone new.

(Image: Holiday Ireland Tours)

The Role of YST:

Ģ����ý�ý.’ is a travel demand management platform designed specifically for challenges like this. We work with event organisers, venues, and destinations to shape how visitors travel to and from events, optimising people flow to improve both operational efficiency and commercial performance. By tailoring routes and integrating bespoke transport services not typically surfaced in standard journey planners, we help deliver smoother, more sustainable visitor journeys. In doing so, we also capture business-critical visitor behaviour and experience data that is otherwise lost to third-party platforms.

For horse racing event organisers that means:

• Pre-event travel planning tools tailored for racegoers that help visitors understand each journey option and nudge them towards the lowest-carbon route
• Operational insight and demand forecasting, giving racecourses the data they need to optimise transport, crowd flow, accessibility, and revenues
• Sustainability reporting that enables racecourses to evidence progress towards environmental commitments and strengthens reputation with stakeholders
• Real time communication that keeps racegoers informed about delays, shuttle capacity, road congestion, and wayfinding to reduce stress and improve the overall visitor experience.

By positioning their YST powered ‘travel assistant’ service as a new channel for sponsorship and revenue – racecourses can promote hospitality upgrades, transport partners, accommodation partners and more at the exact moment of consideration.

Above: Travel assistant deployments showing personalised travel plans with sustainable options, enhanced 3D maps, parking areas, and gate-specific wayfinding.

Business development and sales

• ��Build, manage, and close a robust pipeline of net-new opportunities across MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, MLS,college sports, live entertainment, and major event venues.
• Target and win complex, multi-stakeholder deals with C‑suite, VP, and Director-level buyers (e.g.,Ticketing, Operations, Fan Experience, Transportation, Sustainability).
• Lead the full sales cycle from prospecting, outbound campaigns, and first meetings through proposal, solution design, negotiation, and contract execution.
• Consistently meet and exceed quarterly and annual contract and revenue goals.

Go-to-market and strategy

• ��Localize and execute YST’s North American go‑to‑market plan, including target accounts, verticals, and partner channels.
• ��Use YST’s MLB club relationships as referenceable case studies to drive league-level and multi-club conversations.
• ��Provide structured feedback to UK product and leadership teams on US market needs, competitive landscape, and pricing expectations.
• ��Represent YST at key US conferences, league meetings, and industry events to raise brand visibility and generate high-quality leads.

Account and partner development

• Land and expand: grow contract value through cross-sell and upsell with clubs, venues, and destination partners after initial wins.
• Develop strategic partnerships (e.g., ticketing platforms, mobility providers, fan engagement and venue-tech vendors) to create integrated, “better together” solutions and co‑sell opportunities.
• Ensure a smooth handoff to YST’s Client Development team, while staying engaged as executive sponsor for key North American accounts.

Forecasting, process, and collaboration

• Maintain accurate, up-to-date forecasts and deal hygiene in CRM; communicate clearly on pipeline health, risks, and upside.
• Work closely with marketing to refine messaging, campaigns, and content for the US audience, with clear value propositions and ROI stories.
• Collaborate with product and operations to shape commercially viable solutions and proposals that meet US customer requirements.

EnRoute: Turning the Journey Into Part of the Cultural Experience

‘Ģ����ý.’ has launched EnRoute, a first-of-its-kind, content-driven travel innovation developed in partnership with Birmingham Hippodrome and delivered with Innovate UK through the DCMS Create Growth Programme.

EnRoute was created to bring travel, culture and sustainability closer together. Audience journeys account for the largest share of emissions at live events, yet they’re rarely treated as part of the experience itself. EnRoute rethinks this by linking personalised, low-carbon travel planning with creative digital content, making the journey an active part of how audiences engage.

UTMB Configuration

‘Ģ����ý.’ has developed a suite of new features to support Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB)’s hugely popular registration lottery, nudging participants towards low-carbon travel. The UTMB GO Travel Assistant incentivises trips that meet UTMB’s low-carbon business rules by offering a boost in the ballot and uses YST’s carbon calculations to help define each participant’s carbon offset.

With this configuration, YST is establishing the platform as the travel planning system for major ballot-based events, giving organisers a practical way to influence the carbon footprint of their audiences.

Making the Most of the Travel Assistant

Throughout the year, clear and well-timed communication has made a real difference in how audiences engage with travel information across tours, festivals, venues and destinations. Sharing the travel assistant early, whether on a website, in pre-event emails or via social channels, helps audiences plan their journey and know what to expect. The Client Development team is always happy to support, from advising on timing and messaging to sharing examples of what has worked well for others.

About the SIREN RouteMAIT Initiative

The (ITEA sponsored and Innovate UK funded) SIREN UK Consortium proposes to develop a MAIT-based (Multi-Agency Incident Transfer protocol) routing tool, RouteMAIT, that gives emergency responders a live picture of debris hazards and road states. RouteMAIT responds to MAIT messages with adaptive routes that fuse models and sensor evidence to incorporate real-time constraints.

The payoff for emergency planners and incident responders is faster, safer reopening of priority corridors, fewer crossed wires between agencies, better evidence for debriefs and claims, and a practical cadence (e.g. sub-5-minute single-crew updates, ≤15-minute sector sweeps) that restores access and confidence sooner.

Professionals working in emergency planing and blue light incident response are invited to attend an in-person workshop hosted at the University of Leeds on 27 February 2026, to begin co-creation of this tool with the SIREN UK Consortium and to discuss options for pilot deployment.

Who Should Attend

The workshop is intended for anyone involved in emergency planning, incident response, highways, transport operations, flood recovery and multi-agency coordination in particular members of the Emergency Planning Society.

Event Details

Date: 27 February 2026 | Location: University of Leeds | Cloth Hall Court
Format: In-person workshop, online attendance available

Workshop Context

Why it matters for operations and routing

• Blockages: culverts and bridges clog, leading to road closures and increased upstream flooding.
• Road safety: sharp objects, mud and stranded vehicles result in “slow” or “closed” states.
• Follow-on hazards: contaminated debris requires PPE and specialist disposal routes.
• Logistics: clearance must be co-planned with waste sites and vehicle constraints (e.g. weight limits, water depth).

Flooding commonly generates significant debris

• Vegetation: trees, branches and reeds torn out by fast flow.
• Built-environment fragments: road surfacing, masonry, roofing, fences, signage and street furniture.
• Vehicles and appliances: cars, skips, bins, oil tanks and sheds.
• Sediment and drift: silt, gravel, cobbles and plastics.
• Hazardous materials (spotty): fuel, pesticides and sewage-contaminated waste.

SIREN models debris as a dynamic constraint

• Compute time-varying impact layers (flood depth / speed → road state) to derive route states (open / slow / closed / damaged) with validity time windows for the region enclosing the incident — based on confidence and certainty of input data, risk tolerance, and human-in-the-loop local managerial logic.
• Assign confidence levels to predicted route states, if possible at T+1, T+10, etc.
• Identify adjacent or secondary hazards and risks, such as those caused by water contamination.

How floods create debris

• Hydrodynamic force and scour detach and transport objects.
• Undermining of banks, foundations, culverts and bridge abutments causes structural break-up.
• Backflow and overland flow lift loose items (e.g. waste bins, garden objects) into carriageways and culverts.

Workshop Aims

RouteMAIT aims to turbo-charge post-crisis resource allocation

MAIT provides a common, real-time incident stream across police, fire, ambulance and local authority control rooms. By treating debris hazards, closures and clearance tasks as MAIT incidents, RouteMAIT can coordinate multi-agency crews, keep maps in sync, and continuously re-plan as conditions change.

Minimal data required

• MAIT feed (hub or point-to-point)
• AddressBase (UPRN / USRN)
• OS road base
• Flood depth and speed rasters (good-enough resolution)
• Tip sites and waste streams
• Vehicle and plant profiles
• MCP connectors (CCTV, traffic and sensors)
• JOSM authorisation mechanisms

Edge cases handled

• Re-blockage risk: add penalties to links with high floating-debris probability.
• Partial openings: encode lane-level states with speed penalties rather than hard closures.
• Uncertain geometry: push verification tasks and keep conservative defaults until confirmed.

Realistic Service-Level Objectives (SLOs) to aim for

• <5 minutes to issue or update a single-crew route after a new MAIT incident.
• ≤15 minutes to produce an initial multi-crew sector sweep.
• Rolling 30–60 minute re-plans while flood dynamics persist, with ≤60 second re-optimisations for urgent updates.

Register Your Interest

Places are limited to support meaningful discussion and co-creation.
We invite you to register your interest to help us plan attendance and share joining instructions closer to the even

Key Responsibilities:

• Serve as the main point of contact for a portfolio of clients, managing day-to-day communication, support, and relationship growth.
• Support clients through onboarding, setup on internal systems and training sessions to ensure successful adoption.
• Oversee the full client relationship via Hubspot.
• Monitor and raise engagement levels of client deployments.
• Deliver client renewals and retention, manage change requests, and identify expansion opportunities.
• Configure supported client deployments via the YST dashboard.
• Gather and analyse client feedback and usage metrics to inform product and service improvements.
• Support full deployment delivery, ensuring technical and visual elements are completed to client satisfaction.
• Support client queries using Atlassian Service Desk and Jira.
• Data:
  – Use the YST dashboard to provide clients with regular analytics and insights.
  – Utilise available data to support the clients’ sustainability goals.
• Projects:
  – Assist with the end-to-end delivery of innovation projects, including reporting to funding bodies, and progress tracking.
• Coordinate relationships with consortia and stakeholders.

Editors Notes

About Ģ����ý�ý.’
Founded in 2015 by Chris Thompson (CEO), Ģ����ý�ý.’ is the leading travel demand management and visitor travel planning platform for destinations, venues, and events. Its technology enhances visitor experience and increases revenues whilst reducing the disproportionate carbon footprint created by visitor travel. Its intuitive online travel assistant interface can be tailored to optimise data capture, people flow, dwell time and revenue generation. It enables organisations to offer content-enhanced wayfinding and curated low-carbon door-to-door travel plans that nudge visitors towards ‘net zero’ travel.

Ģ����ý�ý.’ has garnered significant traction with flagship clients, including deployments for the London Marathon Events, Live Nation, Manchester City Football Club, and Major League Baseball teams. The company’s innovative approach to sustainable travel management has earned recognition from industry leaders and positioned it for further growth and success.

About Birmingham Hippodrome
is one of the UK’s busiest and most diverse cultural venues, welcoming over one million visitors annually. As an independent charity, the Hippodrome presents a world-class programme of theatre, dance, opera and festivals, alongside extensive education and community work across the West Midlands. The organisation is committed to innovation, accessibility and delivering exceptional experiences for audiences of all ages.

About Innovate UK
, part of UK Research and Innovation, is the UK’s innovation agency. We work to create a better future by inspiring, involving and investing in businesses developing life-changing innovations. With an annual budget of over £1billion we provide businesses with the expertise, facilities and funding they need to test, demonstrate and evolve their ideas, driving UK productivity and economic growth.

Why Travel Matters

Transport is the largest emitting sector of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK, now producing about 30% of total emissions as of 2024. When focusing on the outdoor live events sector, travel is the single largest emissions source. According to , 41% of carbon emissions come from visitor travel, increasing to 58% when including supply chain and artist travel.

It’s clear that tackling travel is a priority. By taking the lead, the live events industry has the opportunity to influence and inspire millions of visitors to step up and engage with the climate crisis – encouraging more people to make individual changes, stay informed, and use their voices to demand that politicians make life on this planet their priority.

onboard:earth recognise that the very best solution to the issue of travel is to prevent carbon emissions by moving to low-carbon travel, which is where the YST travel
assistant comes in: Ģ����ý�ý.’ (YST) is the leading travel demand management and journey planning platform for destinations, venues, and events. By sending every visitor a personalised, low-carbon travel plans, visitors are nudged towards sustainable, active travel. The software also improves visitor experience and accessibility, reduces strain on the transportation network, and captures valuable data on people movement and associated CO2e emissions.

While event organisers, venues and destinations are advancing efforts to reduce operational emissions, through renewable energy, sustainable catering and collaborating with their supply chain, addressing travel emissions remains a significant challenge. Deploying the YST-powered travel assistant positively shifts travel behaviour; however, carbon emissions are inevitable until private and public transport solutions are decarbonised.

Everyone can do something positive about those unavoidable travel-related carbon emissions by making a donation to support projects that protect parts of the planet and people under threat from global warming.

The Event Production Show 2026 Case Study

The YST x onboard:earth integration was first deployed for the Event Production Show travel assistant service. Mash Media adopted this solution to tackle their event emissions, encouraging delegates to offset their travel emissions.

How the Ģ����ý�ý.’ Team Made the Journey��

As a WSA partner, Ģ����ý�ý.’ also made the trip using sustainable travel. One of the routes taken combined walking with a Great Western Railway service into Newport – a simple, low-emission journey that avoided congestion and the need for parking.��

Here is an example of the travel plan used by the YST team, which generated 7.9kg CO₂e door to door and showed how easy low-carbon travel can be when options are clear and accessible.

“We are delighted to receive DfT funding through Connected Places Catapult to develop AI Travel Marketplace. It represents a step change in the purpose and utility of travel planning applications, focusing on load-balancing available transit resources to deliver socio-economic outputs, rather than promoting limited shortest path options that have historically left people stranded.”
– Chris Thompson, CEO at Ģ����ý�ý.

Expanding the Rural Transport Toolkit

A key achievement of the trial was the successful integration of new transport services:

• Uber and Smartzi were added to broaden taxi options.
• Liftango’s Indigo PLUS DRT service was integrated, promoting shared, flexible routing in underserved areas.
• Multiple new rural transport modes were introduced, increasing choice and reducing isolation.

Crucially, the travel assistant not only supported residents but also enhanced organisational efficiency. Through aggregated travel data, the platform helped identify underserved areas, provided actionable insights into CO2 emissions, and offered opportunities for carbon reduction strategies.

Real-Life Impact

During the trial, over 10,000 travel plan queries were logged. Users found new transport options they hadn’t previously considered – 22% even changed their travel plans after using the tool.

At Compton Verney,�� a visitor with additional needs successfully used the DRT service after struggling with regular buses – a testament to the platform’s accessibility benefits.

A Vision for the Future

The success of the AITM trial proves that innovative digital solutions can make rural mobility smarter, greener, and more inclusive. YST is now well-positioned to scale its platform nationally, particularly within other rural NHS trusts and local authorities.

The next steps include:

• Deepening integration with transport providers like Uber and Smartzi.
• Expanding DRT coverage.
• Enhancing user engagement via patient portals and proactive communication (e.g., appointment reminders with journey planning links).

As rural communities across the UK continue to grapple with connectivity challenges, tools like the travel assistant represent a scalable, data-driven response – one that reduces car dependency, supports sustainability, and builds stronger, more connected communities.

Ready to make rural transport smarter?
Book a demo with our team and see how the travel assistant can transform journeys in your area.

2025 – Leeds: Shaping the Future of Everyday Travel

This year’s Modeshift Travel Assistant builds on everything we’ve learned so far, helping delegates plan connected journeys that bring together rail, walking, cycling, taxi, and more options, all in one place.

It’s about making travel planning effortless – combining accessibility, sustainability, and smarter technology to reflect how people really move.
Each plan not only helps delegates get to Leeds more easily but also adds to a growing dataset that reveals how travel behaviour is evolving.

In the spirit of this year’s “Evolving the Narrative” theme, we’ve taken a step back to explore what that evolution looks like – tracing how the travel assistant has changed, and what its data tells us about the journey towards more sustainable, accessible events.

Plan Your Journey to the 2025 National Modeshift Convention