I'm happy to discover that there are hosting sites for tourbus-operators, providing pre-built web functionality. For instance: http://tbs.distinctive-systems.com/tbsus/ (You can customize the website to match your company's services and offerings.)
Also, there's a large marketplace for vehicle-dispatching software -- apparently primarily aimed at the trucking business but clearly adaptable to my needs.
One of the advantages of conducting research into these software packages is that I'm learning about the niggling details of what issues bedevil this kind of company. I think if I hadn't spent five years running The Children's Bookfair Company, in Chicago, that I might be a bit daunted. But we were renting vans and trucks and working sometimes ten school accounts simultaneously, all around the region. It was hectic, but definitely I have a feel for what it's like to be in lots of places simultaneously. In truth it all boils down to people. If you can get great staff, then all problems are being dealt with collaboratively by very smart, engaged, committed people.
So this is the key task. Developing a staffing strategy that -- as in bookselling -- taps a pool of overeducated problem-solver types. The trick may be simply to piggyback on the bookstores themselves. I wonder if I could base my hiring on the employment pools that are currently centered around the various bookstores I'll be working with. Booksellers doing in-town guiding, on-bus facilitating... And, ultimately, when I begin to acquire some vehicles, doing van- and bus-driving.
It would be great to have working booksellers operating BiblioExpeditions.
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