Making any great event happen requires a huge effort from countless companies and contractors working behind the scenes for weeks or months, and The Ryder Cup is no exception.
But to, transport materials and personnel around the site to carry out the work relies heavily on the golf cart fleet.
These come in many shapes, from box-backs to 6-seaters, and at this year’s Ryder Cup, a total of 550 Club Car vehicles were on site, nearly 300 of those allocated to the Staging and Setup teams such as signage, grandstand construction, catering, cleaning, marshals, greenkeepers, and operations staff.
But with so many golf carts allocated to so many different departments, managing these carts can quickly become impossible.
In the past, event rental fleets have depended on key handling or basic keypads, where each cart is allocated its own code. This means if a company hires 5 golf carts, they are given 5 keys and 5 codes.
This is inconvenient and allows the sharing of codes and keys easily. Updating or removing these codes also requires a person to go to each cart and manually change them.
The decision made this year by the Ryder Cup organizers to grant IOTee the opportunity to revolutionize the operation of the golf cart rental fleet was an exceptionally wise and crucial move.
With IOTee, each cart was equipped with a smart keypad which also includes RFID – a similar technology to your hotel room key – allowing ‘tap and go’ operation of the vehicles along with identification.
IOTee gave out individual codes or RFID wristbands to any person driving a cart and were configured to work on their allocated carts. For example, A company might hire 5 carts, so each person in that company would receive a code or wristband, which grants them access to only those carts.
Event organizers might be granted access to all carts and, for some, only 1 cart. Whenever the code is used, a record of who is driving that cart, where the cart is, and where the cart has been can be viewed live on the map.
By the end of the Ryder Cup, IOTee had registered and allocated individual access codes and RFID wristbands to over 800 people!
Another interesting statistic is that IOTee stored over 44,000 individual ride records throughout the rental period.
This data is unprecedented in the cart hire industry. It allows the operator, in this case Ryder Cup Europe, to see exactly how their golf carts were used and helps them make data-driven decisions for which carts or how many to hire for future events.
IOTee also placed a QR code on each cart, which included live chat support, and they could use this to communicate any buggy-related questions or issues instead of being stranded around the large site.
Feedback from the Ryder Cup Europe has been incredibly positive, saying that it was very convenient for them to see the locations of all of their hired golf carts to monitor usage and driving behavior and to have overall control.
Many of the contractors commented that the golf cart hire was the most organized they have ever experienced and that it helped solve the problem of others taking their golf carts.
“This project started over 1 year ago after we presented our concept of a connected rental fleet to the European Tour to help modernise their cart rental process.
This led to the development of the RFID and Keypad module which we used at the Ryder Cup, and we were able to introduce additional features based off the specific needs of the Tour.
This partnership is a good demonstration of our company values and that we are always willing to listen to our customers to create a solution which fits their needs.
The Ryder Cup was a huge success for IOTee, and we hope to maintain our services so that more events can benefit from the convenience of our technology.”
Performance summary of IOTee at the Ryder Cup
Here is the summary of the performance of IOTee during the Ryder Cup:
Total installed carts: 281
44,342 rides recorded
Average driving distance per ride: 2.2km
Total drive distance (approx.): 90,098km
Number of registered drivers with codes: 820
You absolutely need to try it out at your golf club! These reasons are more than enough to convince you. Don’t hesitate to let me know if you’re interested, as I’d be thrilled to introduce you to the IOTee team.
