As the Tampa Bay Buccaneers showed their prowess over the Kansas City Chiefs at Super Bowl LV so did Springshot’s newly revamped online platform that proved crucial in getting fans to and from their seats quickly and efficiently before and after the championship game.
Springshot, which partnered with SP+ Gameday, a guest logistics vendor, to disperse and track the electric golf carts and wheelchairs used by remote workforces to move guests and event staff, unveiled a new custom interface built for SP+ emphasizing structured data capture, intuitive design and ease of use. SP+ members created 198 Springshot accounts among frontline members, dispatchers, coordinators, leaders, supervisors and administrators.
We delivered on our No. 1 priority to deliver seamless guest logistics by having electric golf cart drivers capture their hourly guest data via our mobile platform to ensure efficiency and proper delivery and placement of golf carts and wheelchairs throughout the event. We also helped dramatically improve communication and workflow between SP+ members scattered throughout the stadium by allowing for direct phone calls between cart drivers, dispatchers, and guests, enhancing the overall experience for partners and users.
This completely renewed platform resulted in accurate people counts, with golf cart drivers and wheelchair associates moving over 700 fans into the stadium before the game, and transporting over 580 people out during and after the last two quarters. In total, golf cart drivers traveled 52 miles before, during and after the game by accepting over 500 missions via the Springshot mobile app.
Necessary Covid-19-related protocols resulted in caution among SP+ staff and Super Bowl fans with only about one-third of the usual fanbase allowed inside Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida. About 25,000 fans, including 7,500 vaccinated front-line workers, and 30,000 cardboard cutouts watched as Quarterback Tom Brady’s Buccaneers defeated the Chiefs, 31 to 9.
Due to Covid-19, SP+ staff committed to sanitizing carts and golf carts between usage, cleaning 488 golf carts and 197 wheelchairs. In addition, masks, health assessments and physical distancing were required, while staff completed our Springshot training remotely via video, rather than in the stadium, as in years past.
Mission Super Bowl LV
Since the last Super Bowl in 2020, we moved quickly to re-imagine our interface for passenger counts in order to address the data capture needs of SP+, and make the experience even better for partners and users. Not only is it imperative to easily collect and analyze data on golf cart and wheelchair usage by where people are picked up and dropped off, but it also must be collected safely.
Over the year between the championship football games, we committed to testing the best interface to capture passenger data. We began by exploring passive data capture using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and IoT sensors. But given the dimensions and layout of golf carts, with low ceilings that couldn’t support ceiling-mounted cameras to detect bodies on seats, we discovered that seat-based sensors would not work to count ridership due to the thickness of cart cushions.
As a result of this research, we updated with a new interface that is simple for anyone to use for data tracking with “minimal clicks”; it efficiently collects the data critical to understanding how and when people using electric golf carts move in and out of the stadium with a phone mounted to the dash of the golf cart itself. Our app is easy for golf cart drivers to tally when a person climbs aboard and provides an interactive tactile response of a light vibration and a color change when data is entered. This helps create a gamification of the app which encourages users to collaborate and share data, and it eases communication with dispatchers and coordinators.
“This year was an enhancement from last year. We can count passengers by the hour. We saw a lot more cart service mission interactions, meaning ingress versus egress. You could see the carts move into the stadium. It was really, really cool,” said Pantilon.
One golf cart driver likened Springshot to a ride-share app given the ease of use for data capture capabilities: “Someone sends me a mission, I go and pick up the people, and then I confirm it on my phone,” he explained.
The new interface also includes improvements in collaboration and communication via direct phone calling, one-on-one instant messaging, and the use of customized channels for mobile teams. As a result, SP+ staff no longer needed to communicate using two-way radios, whose signals can cut out when underneath the stadium. They directly spoke with individual teammates, cart drivers and/or agents escorting VIPs. The main dispatch — and team coordinators for the first time this year — assign missions on Springshot, too.
“With team members who don’t work together on a regular basis and on this scale, it’s amazing to be able to do that across an entire operation. We can still get our work done together thanks to Springshot,” Pantilon said.
We once again worked as a time saver for the SP+ event staff by creating a “Crew Members Staging” report at halftime, correlated via the drop off locations from prior guests. This helped staff place enough golf carts at appropriate gates in the third and fourth quarters and ready to move guests to parking lots as they left the game.
Another exciting improvement featured on-demand requests for carts by fans. Using a QR Code scanned directly from their phones, fans connected to a hotline to request a cart or wheelchair from anywhere; dispatch created a mission for a SP+ member to serve the requestor.
“Seeing everyone allocated and ready to go, that’s a nice feeling. If we can make the guest experience a lot better and help the service providers perform their job a lot better through the Springshot platform, I’m up for it. At the end of the day, we did our job there,” said Pantilon.
More efficiencies ahead
Our Springshot app is applicable to many other industries, such as aviation, healthcare, and food service. Customizable platforms empower these workforces and track complex data sets specific to their industry goals. And, importantly, all the data collected by Springshot becomes part of a bigger data dashboard that companies can access at any point.
Springshot’s excellence is scalable for all the operations behind the scenes running and organizing large events, and our work is not done when it comes to the large sporting events. We plan to enhance our platform for the big game in Greater Los Angeles, California in February 2022.
In addition to managing the workflow of remote electric golf cart and wheelchair associates, the game-related opportunities the platform can help with via data collection are endless — from cleaning concessions, restrooms, and seating areas to security, janitorial, equipment setup and catering. Stay tuned, and contact us for more information about how your business data can be collected and optimized!
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