Permanent Campaigns Consulting

The New York Times reports on the surge in transit ridership and the lack of any plan for a shift in public policy to provide *more* service.

But meeting the greater demand for mass transit is proving difficult. The cost of fuel and power for public transportation is about three times that of four years ago, and the slowing economy means local sales tax receipts are down, so there is less money available for transit services. Higher steel prices are making planned expansions more expensive.Typically, mass transit systems rely on fares to cover about a third of their costs, so they depend on sales taxes and other government funding. Few states use gas tax revenue for mass transit.In Denver, transportation officials expected to pay $2.62 a gallon for diesel this year, but they are now paying $3.20. Every penny increase costs the Denver Regional Transportation District an extra $100,000 a year. And it is bracing for a $19 million shortfall in sales taxes this year from original projections.“I’d like to put more buses on the street,” Mr. Marsella said. “I can’t expand service as much as I’d like to.”

Many rush hour routes are at capacity for the first time. People are coming to understand that the era of cheap oil is over and transit is now one of the absolute best investments in our economy we can make. Our political strength is growing. We need a much more aggressive investment in transit from different sources of revenue than the local sales tax. Transit agencies need to evangelize a bold vision for more transit for more people in more places than ever before to address the new reality of very expensive gasoline.  And by the way, did you notice that in this story that is tailor-made for “what should we do about this new problem” — that there is no call to action? That’s because (in my view) we have not yet articulated what our vision for transit in a $4 or $5 /gallon gasoline nation should be. We should triple ridership and expand transit to more people in more places. And we should make it very clear what we think the nation and each state should do to implement that vision to generate more investment in transit. Until we can articulate what we want, we will continue to miss opportunities to capture the public imagination to invest in more transit. It’s time to be bold! 

At the end of a Wall Street Journal article today on how technology is helping the savvy slice some cents off the gasoline bill, Google Transit makes an appearance for a blogger in Milwaukee who used the elegant and powerful search to figure out how to use Milwaukee’s bus system. (And as a huge personal fan of Milwaukee — I’ll actually be there Monday — I’m *really* glad Milwaukee signed up with Google Transit because I’d never been able to figure out their bus network).

Will Carpenter is using the Web to cut out fuel consumption altogether. Google has teamed up with public transit authorities all over the country to provide directions for using public transit to get from point A to point B. Mr. Carpenter has been using the bus to get around on weekends since he discovered Google Transit was available for Milwaukee, his hometown. “Prior to that, I’d never used the bus. I didn’t want to take the time to figure it out,” he says.He calculates he saves around $15 every weekend by taking the bus instead of driving or taking a cab. 

The next issue of More Riders Magazine features an in-depth interview with Tom Sly of Google who is one of the leaders of Google Transit as well as a thoughtful piece by our own Matt Hardigree on how the definition of a map has changed (and how transit agencies — as some of the nation’s most prominent map-makers — need to adjust). The magazine is at the printer now and subscribers should expect to receive the next issue in the mail sometime around the 20th of the month. 

Streetsblog extensively quotes U.S. Senator Thomas Carper’s floor speech making a strong case for greater mass transit funding and observing the connection between energy policy, housing and mass transit. Clearly the energy and housing crises focus greater attention on mass transit in America - from commuters to congress - and they offer a more receptive audience for mass transit ridership campaigns as a solution. A couple choice quotes about ridership from Senator Carper, a former Amtrak board member, below.

On Amtrak:

“I used to serve on the Amtrak board when I was Governor of Delaware, and every year we would see ridership go up by a couple of percentage points. We would struggle, try to raise money out of the fare box to pay for the system and the expansion of the system. Well, the first quarter of this fiscal year, ridership at Amtrak is up 15 percent. Revenues are up by 15 percent. People are starting to realize that maybe it makes sense to get out of our cars, trucks, and vans and take the train or take transit. Transit ridership is up again this fiscal year more dramatically than it has been in some time.”

On housing and transit:

“Americans are beginning to literally buy homes in places that are closer to opportunities for transit - for rail, for bus, for subways, for the metro systems. As we have seen the drop in home prices across the country - in some cases, very dramatic - among the surprises, at least for me, is to see housing prices stable and in some cases actually going up in places where people can buy a home and live and get to work or wherever they need to go to shop without driving to get there.”

Saturday’s Houston Chronicle includes an example of an earned media piece on higher transit ridership due to higher gas prices that should be an objective of every transit agency in the nation.

Reporters for daily or weekly newspapers are smart. They like to write unique pieces that explore something that is changing in the community. Well, something is changing now in almost every community in the nation: people are riding transit because the price of gas is so high. An article that explains and personalizes this new phenomenon (as the Chronicle piece does by starting and ending from the perspective of  a new rider) is a fantastic way of planting the seed of potentially riding instead of driving in the minds of every reader. So give those smart reporters some hints (like the latest ridership statistics or the route that has experienced the largest growth surge) and then they’ll go to work.

I mean, what a great marketing tool! Every reader will stop and think whether they should quit paying high gas prices and try riding — because, after all, lots of people are doing it (and not just the people too poor to afford a car). There’s a social status barrier we have to overcome with bus transit, and the more that “respectable” people are riding the bus — as documented by the respectable daily newspaper — the more likely we are to entice more potential riders on to transit.

Here’s your gut check question: who in your agency is tasked with calling up the media and pro-actively generating earned media stories like this? If the answer is no one, then you know why you aren’t getting any of these stories generated.

Earned media is an essential component of any transit communications plan. In the third issue of More Riders Magazine, subscribers can look forward to a piece by Owen Brugh, a former transportation newspaper reporter, on how to effectively generate earned media.

That interesting question is at the core of our mission at Permanent Campaigns Consulting. We think the number should be much higher than what most agencies are spending today! But we don’t know what percentage of the budget most agencies are spending now (though I suspect it’s rather low), and we believe the return on investment in terms of revenue from fare sales and political support justifies a higher investment in marketing and communications.But what percentage is right?Well, the City of Calgary recently grappled with this question and Cindy Pickett, the city’s Director of Customer Service and Communications, had this interesting point in the Calgary Sun:

“If you go to a company that spends on marketing and communications, they range between three and 11 per cent spent on their targeted revenues,” said Pickett.  

So…since revenues are usually about half the agency budget (the other half comes from taxpayer support), does somewhere between 1.5 and 5.5 percent of the agency budget to spend on marketing and communication sound about right? Seems right to me. For an agency like the Chicago Transit Authority with approximately a billion dollar annual budget (give or take), that’s about $15M to $55M annually on marketing and communications. For a much smaller agency with an annual budget of $20M, that would be $300,000 to $1,100,000 spent on marketing.Does that seem reasonable? Sure seems like any growth-oriented business would budget that way. 

Memo to transit leaders: do you have a personal relationship with the environmentalists in your community who lobby? If not, on Earth Day, start growing one.

Environmentalists are a growing constituency, especially in the Democratic Party, and the transit-environmentalist relationship is not nearly as strong as it should be. Most self-identified environmentalists tend to value open space, wild lands, species preservation and clean energy sources like wind and solar power more than they do buses and trains. That’s reflected in what most environmental organizations tend to advocate for: protecting forests, protecting polar bears, clean water, clean air and renewable energy.

That means we have an opportunity to ask environmentalists to ask for more and better transit as part of their legislative agenda.  And it’s our job to develop the relationship and ask them to include transit as part of their vision for a greener city or state. Because frankly, organizations like the Sierra Club or the League of Conservation Voters are much better at electing candidates than we are. (I have heard that among female Democratic primary voters, an environmental endorsement is the most powerful endorsement candidates can earn).

So besides the value of developing advocacy partners, environmentalists can also serve as part of the volunteer base of transit agencies to spread the word about the service. There are only so many River Clean Ups. What’s a group of environmentalists to do if they want to volunteer to improve the environment? How about spread the word about transit?

A bit more after the jump

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This is the type of marketing partnership that should be happening between retailers and transit agencies:

A subway line in Kobe, Japan has been transformed into a living room by IKEA: check out the photos on Gizmodo.

Every transit agency should already be in touch with all of the retailers in their community (if not, then you don’t have a good public outreach program). And the agency should pitch this idea to every one of the furniture retailers. Transit agencies shouldn’t be passive, simply waiting for someone to approach them with a creative marketing idea.

We need more creativity in the US! And the way to execute that creativity is with a strategic communications plan that includes systemic relationship building with every sector of the entire community. I’ll bet very few transit agencies have any strategic communications plan at all….

The number of cities aligning their transit communications with Google’s powerful, remarkably compatible trip planning function has jumped dramatically over the last several months. And this week, Chicago joined the ranks as well, becoming the largest U.S. city to integrate the tool directly into its own recently redesigned website. Now the list of offerings spans small corridors like Massachusetts’ Pioneer Valley and massive metropolises such as Dallas.

What’s more, the customizable functionality of Google Transit adds even greater value to integration. The Chicago Transit Authority, for instance, will be able to provide a level of scheduling accuracy brought about only by real-time information as it sees through its large-scale bus tracking system. Plus, the 11 languages available to Google users and the encouragement of mode-switching are fundamental communication methods from which any agency can benefit.

The CTA is being proactive with its added public awareness, installing computer kiosks at select stations that will run the trip planner and then print out the specific route for the commuter. It is an excellent tool for combating rider intimidation and moving towards a more customizable user experience.

Very good news for those critically underfunded regional transit agencies - Google is coming to your aid, too. The ever-evolving company’s recent embrace of open source mapping has turned into a full-on bear hug with the release of its Cities in 3D modeling project. Part of the 3D Warehouse effort, Cities in 3D places the focus squarely on small- to medium-sized cities - areas where public transit is a vital need that is given little attention and where broader urban planning issues carry insignificant weight.

The premise is this: local governments, or any interested party for that matter, can send information regarding the location and size of their municipalities’ buildings to Google, who will in turn create 3D models from that data set. It in effect transforms rather complex (and arguably mundane) GIS data into easily digestible visual representations that residents can then quickly access, utilize, and even edit.

More after the jump…

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Chicago’s CTA plans a $24 million expansion of its GPS “Bus Tracker” system to cover all 154 bus routes by spring 2009 according to the Chicago Tribune. The CTA’s Bus Tracker website currently provides real time information for riders on the pilot GPS #20 Madison route, which started in 2006, but in a couple weeks (by April 7th) this will expand to a total of 14 routes (see below) according to NPR. When completed the Bus Tracker expansion will make the CTA the largest American transit bus fleet offering the GPS tracking technology. The CTA plans to expand GPS tracking to its train line next.

Tracking information is available online and is or will be displayed at digital signs at key bus stations. Blackberry users must have version 4.1 or higher to use Bus Tracker, which can also be viewed on web enabled cell phones and PDAs with browsers, such as Internet Explorer, that support html.

CTA Buses With GPS Tracking

• #20 - Madison

On April 7:
• #35 – 35th
• #39 – Pershing
• #43 – 43rd
• #49 – Western
• # X49 – Western Express
• #54B – South Cicero
• #55A – 55th/Austin
• #55N – 55th/Narrangansett
• #62 – Archer
• #62H – Archer/Harlem
• #63W – West 63rd
• #94 – South California
• #165 – West 65th

For More Information…

- CTA Press Release on the Bus Tracker Expansion - March 24, 2008

- Chicagobus.org has more information on the GPS implementation