LONDON 2012
Page 7
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Neil Cottam,
senior general manager, Aspray 24
What plans have you put in place for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games?
“We’ve turned our White City depot into an Olympic planning ‘war room’. Every single map, restriction, and timetable of events is stuck around a room at the depot in chronological order, starting with the torch relay, through to the soft opening of the Olympic Village in June, to the start of the Olympics in July and through to the close of the Paralympics in September.
“We have plotted which customers have delivery points on or near the Olympic Route Network [ORN] and Games venues, and have established a list of key accounts that are going to be most affected by the Games. We have done one round of leaf leting to all affected customers to make them aware that they are close to an Olympic venue or the ORN, and will therefore need to consider how they will receive deliveries during Games time. “We will be doing another round of leaflets and will also visit in person significant delivery points that are in the shadow of the Olympic Park to discuss arrangements.
“We’ve now decided what we’ll be doing in terms of additional routeing and by the end of this week we’ll have extra vehicles in place. We’ve retained vehicles that we’d normally have disposed of through our vehicle replacement programme for use during the Olympics.
“We’ve also recruited extra staff and have upskilled some of our management and supervisory personnel in terms of licences so we have back-up for driving if required.
“During the Games we will have constant communication with our drivers and customers; if there are any failed deliveries we will offer to deliver again or they could collect from one of our depots. We will have double-manned cabs so that second person can feed back any traffic problems and delays. We also have the resource to do night-time deliveries if customers ask for it.”