Host City – Citec shares insights on Ryder Cup 2023

This Host City 2023 event brought together leading destinations, rightsholders, organizing committees, venues and suppliers for plenary presentations, panels, interviews and workshops on how to attract, host and deliver secure and engaging events with positive long-term impacts. Citec, as transport planning company involved on a series of sport events over the last 20 years, shared its insights on transport planning and operations derived from recent Ryder Cup held in Rome.

Following their involvement in planning and executing transport fort the Ryder Cup in Paris 2018, Citec once again undertook the responsibility in Rome for the 2023 edition. The Italian project spanned on more than 5 years and it overlapped with the roll-out of the Paris’ edition. This transfer of experience benefits to the Italian Golf Federation and Ryder Cup Europe.

Achieving such an organization implies to structure, quantify and verify the event’s mobility plan. Given the venue’s distance from Rome and the limited rail and public transport offers, main strategic decisions were made in the initial stages to frame the planning and preparation for the upcoming years. A robust strategic foundation planning is indeed crucial and stands for 49% of the event’s success. Therefore, the focus must be on the early involvement of local authorities and transport operators, as a big part of transport relies on the existing territorial infrastructure and services. This analytical phase prompted significant investments of 70 million euros in constructing new roads around the area, to serve the Golf venue for the event while addressing a longstanding infrastructural challenges of that area. The event’s positive impact extended to the enhancement of public spaces’ quality and traffic safety in the area, forming part of its enduring legacy. Then, the focus shifted towards the development of operational solutions on public transport to “create” the last leg of the journey to the Golf venue. The roll-out of an adapted shuttle buses fleet to the metro system in Rome was a challenge.

Operating such a complex venue generally requires multiple transport remote facilities (park&ride, railway hubs, etc.) and the coordination and management of hundreds of ground staff. The key numbers for the Rome edition include:

• Over 500 transport staff members,
• Engagement of 4 different bus operators, deploying a total of fleet of over 450 coaches and buses, operating for six consecutive days, 20 hours a day, and facilitating the movement of 55’000 people daily.

During onsite operations, the transport operations involve collaboration among various stakeholders and operators, demanding a robust leadership structure across an extensive territory, integrating local authorities and public transport operators.