It’s our greatest pleasure to announce that CitySprint is officially 25 years old!

Cast your mind back to the year 2000. Tony Blair was the Prime Minister, Britney Spears reigned as the princess of pop, Manchester United dominated the Premier League, and the world was captivated by the celebrity power couple Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. It was also the year CitySprint was officially formed, evolving into the market-leading Same Day delivery company we proudly are today.

From multiple companies to one unstoppable vision

The roots of CitySprint stretch back to the late 1990s when American company DMS (Dispatch Management Services) acquired several UK courier businesses. These included Citadel (Scotland), Delta Despatch (nationwide), Security Despatch (London), and West One Couriers (London). Notably, West One and Security Despatch were based on Scrutton Street, which served as our primary London hub until 2020.

In 1999, Patrick Gallagher, then working for DMS in the United States, came to the UK to spearhead the launch of the CitySprint brand. Just a year later, DMS was acquired by a management team comprising Andrew Bernard, Mark Oppe, Ian Lewis, and Jocelyn Tyacke (BOLT Holdings). This acquisition led to the merger of the aforementioned courier companies, creating a single, UK-wide limited Same Day courier company: CitySprint.

A glimpse into the past of our long-serving colleagues

While CitySprint officially launched in 2000, many of our colleagues were already seasoned veterans in the courier industry. Sam, one of our Compliance Managers, began her journey as a motorbike courier around 1987/88 for Delta Couriers in Manchester. Sam vividly recalls her early courier days:

“I started my courier life on a small but comfortable bike I had used to commute to my previous job, but my 250cc bike really struggled up hills and going over to Leeds was embarrassing as lorries used to overtake me! Then I bought my pride and joy, a beautiful Suzuki GS500E with a fairing on – all blue, including my Gore-Tex jacket, because I support Manchester City!

I rode until I was hit by a fire engine, which led me to decide that four wheels were better for me now! I used my little white Ford Fiesta … until that was stolen during a delivery, and I had left the engine running - lesson learned and never repeated! I then got a little red Peugeot van but found myself helping out in the office more and more; I was classed as an ‘elite subbie’. Every week, all the job sheets were sent by courier down to Birmingham to be inputted into a computer, and every Saturday morning, I would collect the pay cheques from the airport to make sure we all got paid.”

For Chrissie, one of our Support Team Developers, the Same Day courier world is all she's ever known.

“I was seventeen years old when my step-mum, who still works for us as a Clinical Trials Coordinator, came home from a day working and asked if I wanted a job. That was back in August 1994. I went in for some training and became a telephonist shortly after.

When I first started, I was on the telephones – they looked like mission control then – and we used a booking and despatch system called ROCS on old PCs with massive CRT screens. We’d use Teletext to monitor flight delays for airport pickups. The only paper dockets I remember using as a matter of course (other than for when the booking system crashed) were for Red Star bookings, which travelled across the rail network, until Red Star sadly disappeared soon after…

Roles in the control room were quite distinct. Telephonists took bookings, controllers gave those bookings out to the fleet, but we also had something called ‘podium’ which was the link between the telephonists and the controller. If we got a call asking where a bike/van/car was, we would ask podium. If the caller didn’t like the answer, they’d be put through to podium – it freed us up to continue taking bookings, and podium was closer to the controllers.

The drivers were contacted via radio. On the night shift passenger car service, we used an open call system. The controller would ‘first call’ a location of a pickup, if a driver was either on the street or a few streets away, they could call up for it. If the controller got no response, he’d second call it and drivers from a slightly wider radius could call up. If still no response, then the controller would ‘open call’ to all drivers. Of course, if still no response from the fleet, it would lead to awkward conversations with the passenger… including memorably one controller calling the famous fortune teller Mystic Meg to advise that her car was going to be late - and opening the conversation with ‘You probably know this already…’.”

Old school dispatch: Maps and magnets

For Heathrow Operations Manager Lee, it was all maps and magnets back when he was learning the trade of controlling. Lee worked for a number of small courier companies in and around Greater London, including Delta Despatch, before joining CitySprint in 2007 as part of the acquisition of AXA Couriers. He confirms,

Lee, our Heathrow Operations Manager, learned the art of controlling with maps and magnets. Lee gained experience with several small courier companies in and around Greater London, including Delta Despatch, before joining CitySprint in 2007 as part of the acquisition of AXA Couriers. He explains,

“When I first controlled, we used pagers and two-way radios. We had maps on the wall and numbered magnets for the couriers, which we moved around a magnetic board. The jobs were taken on the phone and written on paper dockets, which were handed to the controller.

Once a courier was given a job, the paper docket would be left under his magnet until the job was completed and the POD called through. The courier’s magnets would be moved accordingly around the map. For example, the courier would call ‘goods on’ and once that call was received, we would move his magnet to the destination on the map that he was en route.”

Two and a half decades of trusted delivery expertise

This rich history, woven with the dedication and evolving expertise of our colleagues, truly underscores why businesses have been trusting CitySprint with their critical parcels for a remarkable 25 years. From handwritten dockets and magnetic maps to today's sophisticated logistics, our commitment to reliable, high-quality service has remained unwavering. Explore our Same Day, Next Day, and International services today, and experience the unparalleled quality of service that has been meticulously developed and refined over two and a half decades.

We deliver Courier Services you can depend on. Find out more about our Same Day Delivery or Next Day Delivery solutions.

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