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Delivering Christmas to the UK: How RideTandem supported Royal Mail during peak season
Every Christmas, Royal Mail faces one of the biggest logistical challenges in the UK. Parcel volumes surge, demand intensifies, and thousands of temporary workers are needed to keep the nation’s post moving.
Since 2019, RideTandem has partnered with Royal Mail to help solve a critical part of that challenge: getting people to work, reliably and at scale. The 2025 Christmas peak was our biggest collaboration yet.
The Challenge: Scaling at speed during peak demand
Royal Mail is one of the UK’s largest employers, with around 130,000 employees nationwide. During peak periods like Christmas, the volume of letters and parcels can more than double, requiring the rapid recruitment of thousands of temporary colleagues across multiple sites.
This creates a complex transport challenge:
- Workers are recruited from a wide geographic area
- Shift patterns start early and finish late
- Attendance and punctuality are business-critical
- Demand can change at very short notice
Royal Mail needed a transport partner that could scale quickly, stay flexible, and operate with absolute reliability.
The Solution: Flexible shuttle services built around shifts
RideTandem delivered shuttle services connecting workers from 10 different areas to three temporary parcel sorting centres across the UK.
This marked our fourth consecutive Christmas peak supporting Royal Mail, and demand continued to grow. In total, the service delivered:
- 25,000 passenger bookings
- A 40% increase in bookings compared to the previous year
- 10 shuttle routes, running 7 days a week
Services were fully aligned with Royal Mail’s shift patterns, with the first vehicle departing at 4:45am and the final return service leaving site at 11:15pm.
Behind the scenes, RideTandem’s dedicated account management team worked closely with Royal Mail to respond to changing needs in real time:
- 4 new routes launched in just 2 days to meet rising labour demand
- 88 last-minute journey changes handled smoothly
- Routes optimised using live booking and boarding data
- 90% capacity achieved on the busiest route
This flexibility ensured workers could get to site quickly and reliably, even as demand shifted throughout the peak period.
A true partnership
“During Royal Mail’s incredibly busy 2025 Christmas period, RideTandem proved to be far more than just a transport provider — they became a true partner. With three temporary parcel sorting centres to support and a huge surge in demand, we needed a service that was reliable, flexible and able to react quickly to changing needs. RideTandem delivered that for us.”
This partnership highlights what RideTandem does best: designing flexible workforce transport solutions that adapt in real time, even under intense operational pressure.
Supporting peak workforce transport
Whether it’s Christmas peak, seasonal hiring, or large-scale shift work, RideTandem helps employers move people efficiently, sustainably, and reliably.
If your business faces similar challenges during peak demand, we’d love to help.
