Corporate event shuttles, seen from the inside
A gala starting at 7:30 p.m., guests spread across three hotels, two high-speed train arrivals and staggered returns until 1 a.m.: transport for a corporate event is a small logistics exercise. Here is how we prepare and run it, step by step.
Published on October 6, 2026 · By Khaled Aggoune, founder of ONLY VTC — private-hire driver in Lyon since 2016, assistance missions on the A43/A46 corridor
The organiser's classic mistake: treating transport as a detail to sort out the day before — "we'll take taxis". On the evening, forty people leave a plenary session at the same time, it is raining, and the apps show doubled prices and twenty-five-minute waits. The first impression of the evening is spoiled for a budget line that would have cost less if planned ahead.
We regularly provide shuttles for galas, plenary meetings and seminars for companies in the Lyon region. A successful operation comes down to three stages: the plan, the running of it and the invoice.
Before: the transport plan
Two to three weeks before the event, we build the plan together: who leaves from where, at what time, to where. High-speed train arrivals at Part-Dieu, flights at Saint-Exupéry, hotel pick-ups, rotations to the reception venue — each slot becomes a scheduled ride with its vehicle and driver.
- The right vehicle mix : 7-seat vans for groups, Premium sedans for VIPs and speakers — no half-empty coach, no ten cars for nothing.
- Realistic margins : we know actual journey times at these hours (our averages are public, on theTransport observatory) and set departures accordingly.
- One point of contact at ONLY VTC and one on the organiser's side: on the day, a single pair of contacts.
During: a dispatch team that absorbs the unexpected
On the day, no plan survives intact: a high-speed train is twenty minutes late, speeches drag on, a guest decides to leave early. This is precisely why the operation's vehicles are tracked in real time by our dispatch team — the same team that coordinates our daily rides. A rotation shifts? The next drivers are re-sequenced without the organiser having to make a single call.
Guests see none of this mechanism: a driver with a sign as they step off the train, an SMS with the driver's name and vehicle before each rotation, and a departure on time. For staggered late returns, the vehicles keep running until the last guest — 1 a.m. is no problem, as night is part of our normal activity.
After: one invoice, not a stack of expense claims
The whole operation — the fifteen rotations on Saturday evening as well as the airport transfer on Monday morning — comes on a single invoice, each ride detailed with its reference, broken down if needed by entity or event via the cost centres. No more collecting taxi receipts from forty guests.
A gala, plenary or seminar coming up? Send the date, number of guests and venues to contact@onlyvtc.fr : we will come back with a costed transport plan within 48 working hours. All our B2B solutions are on the page Business.
ONLY VTC has been organising corporate event shuttles in the Lyon region since 2016 — galas, plenaries, seminars, multi-vehicle chauffeur hire coordinated by our dispatch. Contact: contact@onlyvtc.fr or 06 67 25 84 26.