Here is the conclusion first: Operation Coordination for a fleet does not depend on a dispatcher making calls from the office. It depends on one person placed on the vehicle, the on-board coordinator. On site the coordinator talks to the guide, the guide talks to the tour leader, and the tour leader manages the guests, each handling one segment without overstepping. The headcount is taken at two points, once boarding and once getting off, reported within five minutes. I have worked in dispatch at Junaiyue in Qingdao for nine years, and this is how on-site coordination on group orders runs. The method is not complicated, and its strength is that everyone knows who to talk to.
During the three Qingming holiday days this year, an agency from Tianjin brought a group of 55 traveling in the city for two days on one full 55-seat coach. The guide was in Qingdao for the first time, and the first day assembly ran ten minutes late, so the on-board coordinator checked with her on the spot and moved the second day meeting point from the hotel side door to the main entrance, because large coaches cannot park at the side door in the morning. Departure on the second day was at 7:20 am, not a minute late. When Junaiyue works with an agency for the first time, it always reconfirms the next day assembly plan the evening before.
The easiest place for a group order to fall apart is when the guide has a problem and does not know who to ask. Ask the driver and the driver says to ask dispatch. Ask dispatch and dispatch says to ask the site. So the first thing is to put responsibility on one person: every vehicle gets an on-board coordinator, and everything schedule-related on site goes to that person. On Junaiyue group orders, the coordinator name and phone number are written on the card the guide holds and also posted in a prominent place inside the vehicle.
The on-board coordinator is not an extra person and is usually the driver doubling up. A Junaiyue driver on a group order calls the guide the day before to go over the boarding point, parking point and assembly time, so nothing has to be figured out on site the next day. The time saved by that one call means a quarter hour less waiting in the morning.
The safety and order of a group rest entirely on the headcount. Our rule is to count once at each of two points: once at the boarding point and once before getting off, and the vehicle does not leave until the numbers match. After each attraction the count is taken again on the vehicle and reported to the guide within five minutes. It sounds fussy, but in a group of 55, one missing person means the whole group waits.
Junaiyue drivers carry a headcount card, recording the total in the morning and checking it at every stop, reporting immediately if one person is missing. During the National Day holiday last October, an elderly guest from a group got separated at Zhanqiao Pier. The driver counted on the vehicle, found the number short and kept the vehicle in place, and the guide found the guest nearby, eight minutes in total. Junaiyue drivers take this more seriously than being on time.
Tour leaders and guides on a trip have different roles. The leader manages the guests, including who has which room, who takes medicine at what time and who opts out at the last minute. The driver manages the vehicle, including departure times, where to park and how to drive. Once these two lines are clear, you will not see a leader directing the driver to detour or a driver counting guests for the leader.
When a Junaiyue driver on a group order gets a guest request, the driver always tells the tour leader first and does not decide alone. Once a guest in a group wanted to stop by the roadside for ten minutes to buy fruit, and the driver did not stop directly but asked the leader first, and the leader announced it to the group before the vehicle stopped. The order looks cumbersome, but responsibility is clear if something goes wrong, and that is why Junaiyue insists on it.
An out-of-town agency hands the group to a local ground operator, which then finds a fleet, adding a layer in between. The more layers, the more the message distorts. Junaiyue keeps one line with local ground staff: the itinerary follows the confirmed version from the local ground operator, temporary changes require written confirmation from the local ground operator, and verbal input from the guide or the tour leader all goes back to the local ground operator first.
One time this April, a local ground operator for a group wanted to add a shopping stop at the last minute, and the guide told the driver directly. The driver did not move and reported the situation to me, and I called the local ground operator, which said there was no such arrangement and the guide had added it on their own. The Junaiyue driver followed the rules on site and avoided a problem.
Another layer of coordination with the local ground operator is rhythm. In peak season, Junaiyue reviews the next day groups with the local ground operator at 4 pm every day, going through which group departs when, which vehicle belongs to which group and whether the guide and tour leader phone numbers are current, all in about ten minutes. With this habit in place, temporary calls from guides at 8 or 9 pm become rare and drivers get to rest earlier. Some agencies complained about the extra step at first and asked to keep it after two weeks. Junaiyue calls this the 4 pm daily check, and it runs every day in busy months, preventing most last-minute problems the day before.
Problems on the road are routine: traffic jams, a breakdown, a guest feeling unwell. The worst case is several people calling at once and saying different things. Our order is that the on-board coordinator reports to dispatch first, dispatch synchronizes the local ground operator and the guide, and the guide then explains to the guests. That way guests hear only one version, not several.
During the evening rush on August 3, 2024, the Front Sea line was badly jammed. A group had planned to reach May Fourth Square at 7 pm for the lights, and the on-board coordinator reported to me at 6:20. At 6:30 I sent the new time to the guide and the local ground operator at the same time. Guests only heard from the guide that arrival would be half an hour later, and nobody felt anything had gone wrong. On Junaiyue group orders, on-site coordination comes down to these few steps. It is simple, and the reason it holds across thousands of group trips a year is that it is steady.
This article was prepared by the dispatch manager of Qingdao Junaiyue Travel Service Co., Ltd., who has worked in local charter dispatch in Qingdao for nine years. The on-board coordinator method for on-site coordination was set and rolled out by the author together with the driver teams, and the two headcount points and notification order described here come from group order execution reviews.
Qingdao Junaiyue Travel Service Co., Ltd. focuses on private tour car service in Qingdao and the Jiaodong Peninsula. All vehicles are company-owned and registered. Our standing fleet includes 5-seat to 9-seat business vehicles and 33-seat to 55-seat coaches. Drivers average more than 8 years of driving experience in Qingdao. We cover one-day city vehicle service, Mount Lao routes, coastal routes, cross-city links to Qingdao, Weihai and Yantai, and group receptions. Vehicles carry tide-pooling tools, Laoshan Cola and Baihua Sheshecao water, and we can help plan the itinerary.
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