The Olympics motto inspires forward planning - Citius, Altius, Fortius

The Olympic motto is meant to be inspirational…and it is.

The Games mean a lot to the athletes taking part, all of whom have been preparing rigorously for years.  They will have been inspired to push themselves to the limits in a bid for glory.  As spectators, we will be inspired by their athletic prowess and their jaw-dropping achievements.

London - its citizens and businesses - is slowly beginning to feel the excitement.  There is a definite buzz around the streets.  But that excitement is also tempered by the thought of the major disruption that will hit the city during July and August.

The distribution and logistics sector will be particularly affected, but we should all be ready for this by now.  There have been calls by some in the industry to allow greater access to priority traffic lanes.  There’s no doubt that a more equitable approach to the use of these routes would be helpful.

However, I think the best course of action is to think ahead and to be imaginative.   There’s no need for things to come to a complete standstill and forward planning will be the key to keeping London circulating as near to normal as possible.

At CitySprint, we’ve borrowed a leaf from the athletes’ training manual and we’ve been preparing for some time.  We’ve been inspired to come up with initiatives that will keep us delivering peak performance and help our customers to keep their businesses moving.

To this end, we've put in place a comprehensive contingency plan.  We’re increasing our motorbike and cycle fleet and introducing alternative couriers such as rollerbladers and joggers, as well as ‘courier assistants’ for our van fleet who will be able to walk packages to delivery destinations where the final leg of these journeys will be out of bounds for vehicular traffic.  We’ve invested in specialist route-mapping software and our couriers will receive daily traffic updates via GPS so they can select the most efficient routes and avoid traffic hotspots.

Perhaps, most importantly, we have assembled a dedicated team to respond to customers’ questions and help them with contingency planning.

We’ve also spoken to colleagues in Sydney with recent experience of an Olympic Games.  They told us about the importance of keeping customers updated.  They explained some of the impacts of heightened security and how Sydney’s central business district was effectively quarantined.  We’ve factored these insights into our preparations too.


We won’t be standing on any podium, but the invocation of the Olympic motto is definitely driving CitySprint to do the best we can.  I sincerely hope that the majority of businesses in the capital are doing the same.   Overall, the Sydney experience was seen as positive and I think London 2012 will be too.