Expo Transport: people and gear

This page is an index to other pages with the information you need (updated 2018).

The logistics of getting 20 or so cavers and half a tonne of miscellaneous gear out to Austria, on a shoestring budget with a limited number of cars, and people coming-from/going-to various places are daunting. The job mostly involves collating info and badgering people regularly. Starting early saves everyone money.

Organising transport is one of the biggest nightmares and the sooner we know who is going and when, the easier this gets. Getting a second (non- refundable) deposit off people helps to tie them down.

Routes and travel advice
Accounting and money
Organising travel

The bugbear of the Expo Leader if he/she hasn't managed to find a dedicated person to do this. This is a co-ordination/coercion game. Ask everybody when they would like to go to Expo, then match those without cars of their own to those who have cars and will take passengers. Try to make sure that each vehicle that will be funded by Expo will be as fully utilised as possible (for emissions minimisation as well as cost).

This game is combined with the job of getting people to commit to going on Expo at all, as some people will only go when they see their friends are going. You want to get some keen definite people to say when they'll go, then advertise this on the social media so that other people will say 'I'll go then'. Keep everybody informed of the situation with regular emails and posts to social media. People will normally see obvious car sharing opportunities, but don't be afraid to make suggestions. It's important to include the whole lists, not just those who've said they'll go already, as we always pick up a useful number of experienced latecomers.

Later on, there'll be the job of determining who the full, semi-independent and independent travellers are and which vehicles are funded in full or part. This may be a bit iterative, depending on how helpful and communicative various people have been.

The expo handbook assumes (in places) that it is the Treasurer who organises transport; or by default it gets done by the expo leader. This is probably not a good idea and a dedicated transport coordinator should be nominated. This must be someone who has been on expo before, and who can liaise closely with the treasurer on decisions about allowable costs.

Entering data: we have had no particular problems requiring all expoers to hand-edit HTML or Markdown tables when stating their travel plans. This is somewhat surprising.

Commercial gear shipping
Rumour has it that we paid for a pallet of gear to be transported to Hilda's using a commercial courier at some point in the past.

Back to Expo Planning Guide.