Trip Planner Magazine, Fall 2008 by Samuel Scheib

Fall 2008 $5.50

The Art and Science of Transit

universities

PO Box 1071 Thomasville, GA 31799-1071 8 5 0 . 5 9 7. 0 3 3 8 editor@tripplannermag.com

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking. - Voltaire

See samples of our transit thinking at thinkcreative.com/transit

The Art and Science of Transit

Interesting. Relevant. Critical. Transit—long the backward country cousin of the transportation industry—is getting a fresh look in the United States. New light rail projects in auto-dominated places like Denver and Charlotte and streetcars in planning, under construction, or completed in dozens of cities reveal an acceptance of the need to diversify the nation’s transportation infrastructure; global climate change is affecting people’s transportation decisions and high fuel prices are packing trains in the northeast and California and even commuter buses coast to coast. It is an exciting time to work in transit, but now more than ever the people who design and run the nation’s transit systems need a new stream of information to meet demands, adopt service strategies, and implement technologies to secure future successes. The most powerful tool in the transit chest is here. Welcome to Trip Planner Magazine: The art and science of transit a publication dedicated to providing interesting, relevant, and critical information to transit planners, CEOs, and other interested parties across the country. The articles presented in Trip Planner Magazine will meet a three-point standard: they will be interesting, relevant, and critical. Our intention is to grab your attention and provide information about service design, customer service and experience, regulations, marketing, urban land use, and technology that is useful and/or reproducible; reporting and analysis in Trip Planner will examine what works and what is less successful, being neither uncritically celebratory nor dour. We are passionate transit advocates and our goal is to provide a tool to make transit more and more successful.

Please let us know what you think, and enjoy.

PO Box 1071 Thomasville, GA 31799-1071 8 5 0 . 5 9 7. 0 3 3 8 editor@tripplannermag.com

Contents

Features

Busload of Low-Hanging Fruit 8

Florida State and StarMetro just couldn’t get along. Talking to each other (and a little GIS) sure helped.

Getting to U 14

Lessons on U-pass contracts from the transit town of Madison, Wisconsin

Transit Technology for the Internet Generation 19 Kids these days just don’t like to wait. They don’t have to.

Charter Rules 22

In some towns game day service is as much a part of college football as tailgating, but FTA’s new charter regulation feels like water on the fire. Here is a closer look.

Mass Transit Mass Evacuation 27

Lessons learned from transit in emergency situations.

Regular Fare 2

The Palliative 5 From the editor 7 Round Up 29 Distilled Reports 31 Beyond the Car Card 35

Contact Letters

Trip Planner gladly accepts reader comments on our stories. Help us keep the conversation going by sharing your thoughts. Send letters to the editor to letters@tripplannermag.com. When appropriate, writers will be given the opportunity to respond to readers’ comments.

Stories

Trip Planner Magazine wants readers involved in the content of the magazine. Recommend stories or propose to write them yourself by writing to editor@ tripplannermag.com. Put “Stories” and the general idea in the subject line.

Classifieds The We’ll post ‘em. Send Palliative your job postings or other The Palliative takes a lighter classified advertisements to look at our industry. If you have seen or editor@tripplannermag.com. overheard something funny or curious in the office com and put “Classifieds” in the or out on transit, please send us your anecdotes subject line. We charge the low-low or quotations (limit to 100 words or fewer). price of only $100 for the first 25 words This page will also feature photos. Send us then $1.00 per word thereafter; your ad will pictures of terrible bus stops (no location appear both in print and online. information will be published), great bus wraps, strange shelters, or even images of transit beauty. Trip Planner will pay $25.00 for each item used and a byline/photo credit will be given. 3

Transit in the Worst Way

The Palliative Transit Fan According to the Miami Herald, James Harris, 18, befriended several transit employees, and managed to obtain a genuine bus driver’s uniform from them. On June 1st, wearing an employee’s hat low over his face and a pair of sunglasses, Harris was able to bypass security at a transit depot and steal a bus. Harris, dressed in his smart-looking uniform, then spent the next few hours driving the bus down its actual a tour bus and driven passengers around without any route, picking up passengers along the way. He collected incident. fares, drove the speed limit, and dropped passengers off Davis was charged with grand theft auto and driving at their stops. without a licence. At the end of his “shift,” Harris returned the unExcerpted from Lawrence Gridin’s “Law is Cool” Blog. damaged bus to the depot. Police have no indication Miami Herald original source. that he kept any of the fares. Nor did any of his passenFake Bus Stops gers complain. The teen was later caught and charged with burglary and grand theft. Faced with its Alzheimer’s residents’ tendency to wan Two weeks after being released on bail, Harris der away, the Benrath Senior Centre in Dusseldorf, used the same uniform to steal yet another city bus. The Germany, came up with a novel approach: a fake bus bus was taken from a different depot and then driven stop (an exact replica of a real one) out front. Straysome thirty miles to Florida City. It was unclear whether ing residents might be attracted to the familiar colors he picked up any fares during the second trip, but one and design of the kiosk (because long-term memory passenger made it a real joyride: With the bus pulled to is typically still robust) and wait there for a bus instead the side of the road, security cameras show Harris makof trying to “go home” on foot. But short-term, the ing out with an unidentified man. resident is typically unaware of how long he has been After transit officials realized the bus was misswaiting and will remain until a Centre employee sees ing, they used GPS to track it down. When dispatchers him and can guide him back into the home (which ofcontacted Harris, he pulled over and ran from the bus. ten is easy because the resident has by then forgotten Police have been unable to find him since. why he is sitting there). Believe it or not, this is not the first time such From Chuck Shepherd’s “News of an incident has occurred in Florida. A couple of years the Weird,” June 29, 2008 ago in Orlando, a young boy stole a bus and then drove it along its route picking up passengers and collecting A real transit advocate fares. 15-year-old Ritchie Davis took the LYNX public A woman got on with a short transfer. She said, "Can transit service bus from an auction site parking lot. AuI use this anyway?" I told her to take a seat. At [Authorities noted that the bus was being driven at normal rora Village Transit Center] she started yelling at me speeds, making all of its regular stops along the route. because I DID NOT charge her. I ask her to leave. She One of the passengers that the boy picked up became told me I was lucky because she didn't have a gun. suspicious of his youthful appearance and called police. From Seattle Weekly Real Stories of Metro. . . In a remarkable coincidence, after arresting Davis, 9/17/06, 9:59 p.m., #358: authorities discovered that he was already on probation for a similar bus theft. Earlier in the year, he had stolen __ (pal´e at´iv) adj. tending to lesson the pain or severity without actually curing

Pigskin, or Whatever Yo u C a l l I t My aunt and uncle live in one of those picture-perfect New England towns that now exist only to be photographed. Woodstock, Vermont is entirely dependent on tourism for its well-being and Columbus Day is to them what the day after Thanksgiving is to retail. People in Woodstock call the months between summer’s retreat and winter’s advance by one simple but vivid word: foliage. Regular folks there know well how summer rains will affect the trees a few months later and there is a direct relationship between the brilliance of fall’s colors and the financial success of the season. Fall is a big deal. Half of the calendar year is spent in extremes: heat and mosquitoes in summer, ice and snow in winter, higher energy costs in both. The other two seasons, by contrast, are the picture of measured moderation. The spring awakening finds warmer temperatures and a landscape carpeted in green and decorated in pastels, but spring also brings allergies and for us in the South the dread of the long, scorching summer that bears down as P :B F M soon as the azalea blooms fade. Fall, however, is the perfect season, comfortably cool, liberally sprinkled with holidays, and defined by the annual rite of the tree canopy undergoing its beautiful death. “Autumn” is a phonetically gorgeous, if increasingly underused term, but only one of many for this singular season, the variety of words hinting at the esteem in which fall is held: “foliage” in New England, “harvest” on the farm, “sweater” in retail, “forage” for the animal kingdom, “football” for some human animals. Fall, too, has a particular connotation for certain communities across the country, those that see a huge and youthful chunk of the population disappear with the spring rains and reappear as the days begin to shorten. In college towns, fall is not just a season, but also a semester and it shares with spring the feeling of renewal: on the first day of the fall semester every student has straight As and every college football team is undefeated. For merchants, the summer drought is over as financial aid checks are cashed; for locals the short lines in stores and free tables in restaurants are gone, as is the season of easy driving, but that feeling of anticipation hoto

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arm and

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is infectious and no one minds—at least for a few weeks. Of course, it is also a very busy time for the transit agencies that serve the student population and as the first edition of Trip Planner is coming in the fall—and shortly after the American Public Transportation Association’s biannual University Communities and Transit Conference—it seems appropriate to dedicate the issue to university transit. University transit brings challenges and opportunities. Student drivers at both university and public agencies provide readily available, sometimes less expensive, labor that operates on the same seasonal schedule as the busses. For public agencies providing university transit, serving football games is as traditional as game day programs but new federal charter regulations threaten what is seen as an almost civic duty. GIS programs and cooperation between public agencies and the universities they serve can bring new efficiencies, and transit can play an essential role in unplanned events and emergencies as happened the day of the Virginia Tech tragedy in April 2007. All these stories and more are in this first copy of Trip Planner. This is a magazine dedicated to providing information about service strategies, technology, marketing, and customer service and experience, as well as transit history and stories about the joys of transit for those who provide it. A recent survey by Transit Talent showed that 70% of transit professionals did not set out to work in the industry. Something about transit holds our interest and this magazine seeks to explore both the empirical and the ethereal. I hope you will enjoy Trip Planner and look forward to finding the next copy in your inbox. In the meantime, write to let us know what you think. And happy fall, or whatever you call it.

Samuel L. Scheib Editor

Busload of LowHanging Fruit

All photos this story: Scheib

by Samuel L. Scheib

Florida State and StarMetro just couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get along. Talking to each other (and a little GIS) sure helped.

eauty does little to diminish the chasm that exists between two hilltops; the view from one to the other can be lovely, even spectacular, but traversing that space can still be difficult from the steepness of the grade or from obstacles on the path.

So it is in Tallahassee, Florida, where on one peak of College Ave sits the 19th century central business district, considerably updated with the state capitol building, several gleaming condo towers, and, apropos to this narrative, city hall. As

might be expected, at the other end of a street named College is the Westcott Building with its namesake fountain and gate that mark the most photogenic entrance to the Florida State University. Just down the hill from city

hall are law firms, marketing agencies, and apartments, the predictable attachments to a downtown. The approach up the other hill to FSU is similarly complemented with the offices and housing that tend to cluster around institutions of higher learning. In the hollow between them the spirit of Animal House was in full flourish. A series of old fraternity houses were the shame of both the city and the university: garbage covered the yards and overflowed from trash cans and recycle bins, sand carried by rain covered the city’s sidewalks and sewer drains, and empty gravel lots advertised parking spaces for lease. Two of the mansions had burned and much of the charred contents had migrated outside, resembling a post-apocalyptic yard sale. Rarely does the physical geography of a place provide a more perfect metaphor for current events than Tallahassee’s two best known hills did in early 2005. In

Top Left Downtown Tallahassee as seen from the Westcott Building, the historic east entrance to Florida State, Top R ight. One of two burned frat houses, Below on College Ave. between downtown and FSU.

“. . . the spirit of Animal House was in full flourish.” 7

good times the two peaks can be said to overlook one another; that spring they were glowering. In addition to the regular friction that exists between town and gown (traffic mitigation, problems with alcohol) the city and university were at odds over a zoning change that would allow a private developer to build condominiums on land bordering the campus that the university wanted for itself; lawsuits were threatened and editorials were written. Far more ominous for the City of Tallahassee was the headline in the Tallahassee Democrat that read, “FSU wants more from Bus Service,” followed by, “Tallahassee’s mass-transit system had better shape up—or its No. 1 customer might ship out.” The university was seriously considering ditching its $900,000 annual contract with Taltran to start its own transit agency. University officials generally considered the campus service, known as Seminole

Express, to be unreliable and, in the words of one vice president, “not really conducive to student use.” So when, in April, Ron Garrison arrived for his first day of work as the executive director for Taltran, he had a visitor waiting for him: FSU Associate Vice President for Administration Paul Strouts wanted to tell him in person that the university would not renew its contract with the city. Starting a university transit system would have cost FSU millions of dollars and Taltran—a department of the City of Tallahassee—nearly 40% of its ridership, clearly not a winning proposition for either institution. Officials at Florida State knew they wanted something different from Taltran but they did not know what that was. For decades the dominant trend at the university was growth: growth in enrollment, growth in building construction, and growth in the number of parking spaces. The lone exception to the

pattern of expansion was housing; not one bed was added from 1985 to 2005 and beginning in the late 1990s the university began a campus-wide dormitory renovation program, including razing and reconstructing DeGraff Hall, thereby decreasing the number of available on-campus beds by several hundred at any given time. The predictable result of a net decrease in on-campus housing was the externalizing of housing on the community; student apartment complexes sprouted around Tallahassee like azaleas in the spring, the size of each increasing in direct proportion to the distance from campus. Students relied more and more on cars to get to class so that by the 2006-2007 school year there were four parking garages on campus with a fifth on the way, for a total of 39.44 parking spaces per acre, the highest parking density of the eleven state universities (the

next highest was Florida International in Miami with only 31.98). But with such a small campus, the university could not meet demand: there were still only 0.34 spaces per student, the third lowest ratio in Florida. The cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s transit agency had also gone through some changes. By February of 2007 the agency was completing a massive overhaul that included changing its name to StarMetro, repainting all the old buses and buying new ones, and adopting a new advanced farebox system. In addition to the executive director, the planning administrator and the rest of the planning staff were all new to the agency. There were then 11 buses providing service to Florida State and those buses circling the campus accounted for 25% of StarMetroâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s entire annual ridership (an additional 15% coming from the U-pass program that allowed students to use city routes

to get to the edge of campus). The new planning staff observed that in the fall of 2006 only 7% of the student body lived on campus, meaning that those packed campus buses were mostly moving student drivers from parking lots and garages to class. Planners also noticed that there were distinct pockets of student housing within a few miles of the campus. FSU had publicly acknowledged that even with the recent opening of the fourth parking garage and the construction of the fifth about to begin there would forever be a net decrease in the number of parking spaces each year. On the heavily congested streets surrounding the university the planning division saw an opening for increasing transit ridership and for improving relations with StarMetroâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s biggest customer. Staff requested and received student address data from the university and geocoded it in Arc-

GIS. The results were as dramatic as they were expected. Map 1 shows the FSU campus and student population densities nicely concentrated on roads leading to campus. Nothing about this was surprising, but it was important to have data visibly supporting basic assumptions about student housing patterns. The goal was then to take the existing resources of the on-campus routes (11 buses) and use them to bring students to campus with high frequencies without compromising student mobility on-campus; signs around campus had for years promised students a bus every 10 minutes, even if the narrow, welltraveled streets prevented this frequency from actually occurring. StarMetro devised a plan that would extend service to pockets of dense student housing and then circle the campus in what are effectively figure-8 patterns that bring students from home to class

in a one-seat ride, but that still provide frequent on-campus circulation. After a formal presentation FSU administrators enthusiastically approved the final plan as seen on map 2. The route design brings transit to within a quarter of a mile of 53% of registered FSU students. As seen on the map, Tomahawk, Heritage Grove, and Gold each have two buses on 40-minute routes, and Garnet has three buses on an hour route so that each route has a 20-minute headway for passengers. These routes are scheduled with the arrival times printed on signs at each bus stop. The routes are staggered so that they enter the campus ten minutes apart and going in opposite directions so that there are ten-minute headways on campus in either direction. To aid internal circulation there is also the Renegade route which maintains the familiar circular pattern of the old routes when all eleven buses followed roughly the same configuration. For all its flaws the original Seminole Express had the great advantage of being incredibly simple to understand and use: the buses moved in circles, had no scheduling, and never left campus. It had also been in use for more than a generation and there is always a risk in taking something that is entrenched and broadly understoodâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;even useful for those who insist on driving to campusâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and replacing it with a service that is more complicated, unfamiliar, and requires a major shift in behavior (switching from driving to transit). These concerns were voiced during public meetings and some student senators insisted the new service would fail for these very reasons. This student input would prove invaluable in the marketing of the service. The main problem that had existed between the two institutions was a total lack of communication; the only significant contact officials had with one another was during contract negotiations when the two met like the Soviet and American delegations at a prisoner exchange. The relationship had been completely adversarial. No more. FSU and StarMetro developed and split the cost on a number of marketing initiatives to inform students of the change. The joint implementation team met regularly, even breaking bread on occasion. The group designed and printed new Seminole Express stop signs that include a complete system map and a schedule sign for each of the 70 stops. They developed a brochure describing the new routes and distributed 40,000 of them to every apartment complex near the routes; all of the apartment companies agreed to include the brochure in their student welcome packets. FSU Transportation Services, rechristened from Parking and Transportation services to deemphasize student driving, agreed to hand students a copy of the brochure when they paid parking tickets. Carol Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Domski, the new head of Transportation Services, hired

temporary staff to act as transit ambassadors who would answer questions and offer guidance to students for the first hectic weeks of class and she requested FSU Police to direct traffic at key locations around campus to ensure the buses could get through and keep on schedule during the first week of the semester. The university also agreed to include transit on the official campus map for the first time ever and this image was used to create a new Z-card map. Z-card is a handy map that easily folds to the size of a credit card, or more importantly, to the size of an FSU ID card. The map has a pocket that can hold the ID and Suntrust Bank, the vendor for on-campus banking, agreed to help sponsor the printing. Now when students get a new ID, they get it in a Z-card instead of a plastic sleeve so that a transit map is always in their pockets. The most readily apparent results of the program have been on the transportation network. Ms. O’Domski estimates that there are between 400 and 700 fewer cars on campus each day and StarMetro reports a 35% increase in Seminole Express ridership. This can only be expected to grow. “The student population is dynamic,” says StarMetro Planning Administrator Brad Sheffield. “We won’t see the true effect of the change for a few years yet. This year 75% of the students remember Seminole Express as it was. Next year that will be 50%. And when this year’s freshmen graduate, no one will remember the old way, and that means that transit will become just the normal way of getting to school.” Less obvious is the change in relations between town and gown. StarMetro has a fiveyear contract with FSU to provide services, up from the one-year contracts that were previously the norm. Florida State has invested in the new service and believes in it and StarMetro has a product that the staff is proud to offer. Most importantly, both parties now view themselves as partners and enjoy an open, two-way communication. “I have StarMetro in my speed dial,” says Ms. O’Domski and, says Mr. Sheffield, StarMetro is always happy to get her call.

A student, above, holds a Z-card closed and open. New students were given these pocket maps when issued FSU ID cards so a transit map would always be close. “Just Steps to a Stop” stickers, below, were distributed to merchants and apartments to identify the proximity to transit.

Getting to U by Alex Bell

Lessons on U-pass contracts from the transit town of Madison, Wisconsin

he transit map for Madison, Wisconsin shows a thick gray band running along University Avenue south of the University of Wisconsin, Madison (UWM). Far from a lacunae in service, it represents a space so dense with bus routes – 13 weekday routes – that any attempt to represent each of them would have rendered an illegible, varicolored spaghetti. Metro, the City of Madison’s transit arm, provides a lot of service, and the citizenry use it - compared to 15 other metropolitan statistical areas of nearly the same size (see Table 1) Madison’s passenger trips-per-capita (20) is more than twice that of the next highest, Des Moines, Iowa (9).

This impressive statistic can be explained in part by extensive service to the UWM campus. With the 13 routes that skirt its southern edge and two additional campus-only routes funded by UWM, the school’s 42,000 students accounted for roughly 8% of the MSA population and 10% of the city’s ridership in 2007. The University of Wisconsin, Madison, like many state universities, is similar to a central business district in that it has relatively tall structures built at high densities. The campus borders the heart of downtown Madison, a geographic anomaly where the state capitol and associated buildings rest on the Madison

Isthmus, a sliver of earth between Lakes Mendota and Monona. The urban 2000 fabric extends west from 2000 Trips Metropolitan Statistical Area 2000 Pop Passenger per capita downtown to wrap the uniTrips versity from the south. On Chattanooga, TN-GA 476,531 2,359,572 5 the northern edge of the Des Moines, IA 481,394 4,541,204 9 campus the 126 billion gal- Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL 483,924 1,358,985 3 lons of water that comprise Portland-South Portland, ME 487,568 1,240,046 3 Lake Mendota complete Jackson, MS 497,197 759,234 2 the encirclement of UWM. Augusta-Richmond County, GA-SC 499,684 1,221,183 2 Madison, WI 501,774 10,065,495 20 In this dense urban setting, 509,074 2,073,134 4 parking spaces are few and Harrisburg-Carlisle, PA 537,484 366,889 1 housing student vehicles is a Colorado Springs, CO Charleston-North Charleston, SC 549,033 578,508 1 low priority: surface lots are 559,940 4,478,930 8 mere placeholders for new Greenville, SC Scranton--Wilkes-Barre, PA 560,625 1,571,684 3 classroom and research Stockton, CA 563,598 3,734,176 7 facilities. Sharon Persich, McAllen-Edinburg-Pharr, TX 569,463 no data 0 Metro’s planning and Wichita, KS 571,166 2,541,465 4 scheduling manager, notes Sarasota-Bradenton-Venice, FL 589,959 1,620,586 3 that students tend to find is commonly “U-pass”“U-pass” is commonly apof doing so is to point to the hard themselves “at the bottom applied such programs. plied to to such programs. numbers – ridership and revenue. of the totem pole” when additional While not the first agency campus parking is created. Incoming For properties serving institutions of to offer students a U-pass, Metro higher learning, students are often students are advised not to bring offers an example of the great seen as a critical market to bolster their cars, and parking permits are potential they possess and also only issued to approved candidates, these performance measures. Unprovides helpful insights into managlimited Ride Pass (URP) programs usually students who live outside ing the challenges that accompany a of Metro’s service area or have a successful U-pass program. Metro demonstrable need to drive to camAll transit properties has URP contracts with numerpus either for employment or because of “unusual or special needs.” have an interest in dem- ous institutions, including several As an industry, transit faces onstrating the utility of hospitals, the city government, and other colleges and universities; but the daunting challenges of retaining the service they provide, their partnership with UWM and and growing ridership in an increasespecially those that its student government, Associated ingly decentralized society built lack a dedicated funding Students of Madison (ASM), is easily by and for the private automobile source, as they compete the largest and most challenging. (although there is evidence that Ms Persich has managed the this may be changing). Funding is for public monies, often ASM U-pass program since its inoften scarce, and the twin specters with the road builders ception in 1996. Metro was already of politics and “cost-effectiveness” over in Public Works. carrying a high volume of student can foil the best-laid plans. All riders at that time, about 1 million transit properties have an intertrips per year, but traffic congesest in demonstrating the utility of tion around UWM and downtown negotiated between transit propthe service they provide, especially Madison coupled with the aforeerties and a variety of institutions those that lack a dedicated funding mentioned parking difficulties facing are an established and popular way source, as they compete for public students limited the campus’s accesto enhance revenues and attract monies, often with the road buildsibility. Both Metro and ASM wanters over in Public Works. Generally new patrons. When implemented ed to find a reasonable solution. in a university setting, the term speaking, the most effective means Source: U.S. Census and National Transportation Database

Table 1

With little hope of augmenting the on-campus parking supply, ASM decided to team with Metro to increase students’ commuting options. The result was the ASM U-pass, which allows UWM students to ride all of Metro’s routes effectively free of charge (all students pay a non-refundable transportation fee to the university as part of their tuition). Persich likens the program to insurance – not everyone uses it, but the monies collected from everyone subsidize the costs incurred by Metro for those who do use it. Students pick up a U-pass card on campus. A valid UWM ID card is required, and new passes are printed every semester to ensure that only currently registered students can take advantage of the program. This system is preferred over flashing the student ID when boarding because it eliminates the problem of former students using outdated ID’s and taking free trips for which ASM must pay the tab. (ASM and Metro are working on a cost-effective way of coding the student ID cards so they can be read and vali-

dated when boarding the buses.) The pass is intended to help students access the campus from anywhere in Madison and has the added benefit of increasing their options when choosing a place of residence. Since the introduction of the U-pass, Metro’s student ridership has grown substantially, accounting for about 2.4 million trips annually, an increase of 140% over ten years. The success of the program, however, yields complications. Unlimited Ride Pass contracts in Madison take one of two different forms: fixed price and variable price. Fixed price contracts involve projecting ridership for the prospective URP program based on previous years and multiplying this figure by a negotiated average fare. The resulting price is fixed for the contract period. If actual ridership exceeds the projected number, the average fare is eroded, potentially resulting in a revenue loss for Metro. Conversely, if ridership falls short of the projected figure, the sponsoring institution would pay for more service than its

A Metro bus compliments the University of Wisconsin,Madison, campus.

Photo: Metro

members actually use. The problem here is that Metro has an incentive to keep ridership relatively low, a strange and seemingly counterproductive position for a transit agency. While variable price contracts are also tied to an

average fare, they incorporate minimums and/or maximums to ensure that both parties are protected from variances in projected and observed ridership. Under this scheme, ASM would pay the negotiated average fare up to a minimum

number of observed U-pass riders. If ridership exceeds the minimum, a higher average fare would be applied. However, a maximum would be established to protect ASM from incurring exorbitant costs if ridership far surpassed expectations, as could happen when gas prices soar. In short, ASM would pay by the trip, but the price per trip could change depending on the number of U-pass trips recorded. The agreement between Metro and ASM was a fixed price contract during the U-pass program’s early years but has more recently shifted to a variable price structure There is a reason why more because of the protections Transit agencies chose us afforded to both parties. The in 2007 than any other switch was prompted by a consistent trend of growing software vendor. student ridership: it always outpaced projections, and as such, Metro was collecting heavily diluted average fares under the fixed price agreement. However, the decision to move to a variable price contract was not made lightly, as ASM understood that while high ridership numbers meant they were RouteMatch Team Member getting a bargain under the Joe fixed price scheme, the variable price plan would require them to pay more per trip. The UWM administration provided funding assistance to ease the transition to the new pricing system. Although not utilized by THE LEADING PROVIDER OF TRANSIT ITS SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS PLEASE CONTACT US Metro, a third contract alTO SEE A LIVE PARATRANSIT & FIXED ROUTE ternative exists: an hourly DEMONSTRATION rate per service hour. OF OUR TECHNOLOGIES. MEDICAL & BROKERAGE 1–888–840–8791 In this system ridership is not www.routematch.com/events taken into account. With BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE no per trip costs, the most difficult part is in negotiating w ww. ro u t ema tch .c o m / e v en t s

DELIVERING RESULTS

the hourly rate; once agreement is reached the main concern for the transit property is that vehicles do not become overcrowded; the institution has only to be concerned that its members use the service and can make future decisions based on use. The institution then has an incentive to market the service to its members and the property can use higher ridership as a bargaining chip for the next round of negotiations. This system is typically used in systems that have routes specifically designated as campus services. In Madisonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s case, Persich estimates that about 80% of Metroâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s routes serve UWM, so billing by the hour would not be feasible. Campuses that are served by only a handful of routes may find this alternative structure more appealing than one based on an average fare. Even though the variable price contract is now established, several significant points of contention still strain negotiations from time to time. Until recently, Metro negotiated the average fare charged for each of its URP contracts, often times at a rate lower than the actual average fare for the system. In 2006, Metroâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s policy board adopted a fare tariff that applies to all URP contracts and removes the average fare negotiations from the process. This ensures that all URP sponsors are paying appropriate and equitable average fares. The fare tariff also includes annual fare increases to help Metro keep pace with rising costs. However, ridership minimums and maximums remain negotiable and are now the critical points of debate. Although student ridership might be expected to remain more or less stable over the years, Persich states that U-pass patronage has yet to plateau, making these minimums and maximums ever more

important to both Metro and ASM. Observed and projected ridership figures have also been attacked, especially in previous years when counts were done manually. Once, Metro used cash registering fare boxes that required drivers to press a key to record all riders using passes. Today, new fully-automated fare boxes have improved the accuracy of the counts and forti-

If ridership trends are erratic, a variable price scheme with appropriate minimums and maximums can help protect both the transit agency and the institutional client from drastic overpayments or revenue losses. If the veracity of ridership figures becomes a point of contention, an hourly pricing scheme may be appropriate, especially for campuses served by a small number of routes. fied projections based on ridership trends. In fact, these more trustworthy data suggest that Metro has historically undercounted student ridership and further justified the switch to a variable price contract. Given the geographical constraints of the UWM campus, transit is likely to remain a crucial mode of access for the students that ASM represent. As such, both Metro and ASM will need to continue to find ways to streamline URP negotiations and foster a mutually beneficial partnership. While not all transit properties serving major universities will enjoy the benefit of a campus with such extreme park-

ing limitations, the evidence from Madison suggests transit can be an effective alternative to driving to and on campus. University administrations (or student governments) may see transit as a cost effective alternative to new parking decks. Agencies looking to establish URP programs with universities or other institutions should be prepared to establish an average fare that is both attractive to the prospective client but also sufficient to cover the additional costs of increased ridership. A schedule for fare increases can simplify negotiations. If ridership trends are erratic, a variable price scheme with appropriate minimums and maximums can help protect both the transit agency and the institutional client from drastic overpayments or revenue losses. If the veracity of ridership figures becomes a point of contention, an hourly pricing scheme may be appropriate, especially for campuses served by a small number of routes. Where hourly pricing is not feasible, an effective and reliable means of tracking ridership is critical to maintaining a positive working relationship. If this entails a massive investment in new technologies, properties should weigh the prospective benefits against the costs of acquisition, installation, and maintenance. On the same note, it may not be wise to enter into a contract with an institution without being able to accurately track and report ridership statistics. Mistrust in this area could create a long-term rift and effectively alienate a vast pool of new riders. Reliable methods and technologies warrant investigation to ensure that any major partnership has the potential to become a lasting, mutually advantageous relationship.

Transit Technology for the Internet Generation

by Tim Quinn

Kids these days just don’t like to wait. They don’t have to.

s with Scylla and Charybdis, the sea monsters of Greek mythology that harassed sailors crossing the Strait of Messina, transit passengers have for decades contended with the gruesome twosome of waiting and uncertainty. The waiting, researchers have long found, always seems twice as long as it actually is, which in turn breeds uncertainty, that haunting sense that the passenger has already missed the bus. Until recently, the evil twins were a barrier to ridership that better transit providers fought as best they could by maintaining accurate schedules and on-time performance. The goddess Hera guided Jason and the Argonauts safely through the strait; today transit properties have wireless. The pace of technology is exponential; it accelerates and shrinks, filling the spaces in our everyday lives. Nowhere is this more evident than on a college campus where students are texting, IMing and otherwise socially connecting on the Internet. A Pew Internet & American Life Project Data Memo from December 2005 noted that, with the exception of capital-intensive activities (on-line banking or travel reservations, most widely used by 29 to 69 year olds), people aged 18 to 28 “have embraced the online applications that enable communicative, creative, and social uses.” Young adults (i.e. college students) get technology and unlike many other transit providers, university systems serve an ultra-sophisticated demographic that wants information and wants it now, relying on technology to get data quickly and effectively. For the student transit consumer, waiting and uncertainty need not be part of the transit experience. To create a powerful, user-friendly advanced transportation technology system, university transit properties need to a three-pronged approach: harness the ability to deliver real-time schedule information on a variety of displays, increase the system’s operational efficiency, and ensure customer safety and security. Fixed-Route for the Techy Student Fixed-route management systems are the heart of a university’s transit technology operation – they help manage and maintain fixed route schedules, runs, trips, and

published time points and time tables. Universities that operate fixed-route systems—as opposed to demand response—require buses to stop at designated stops at specific times. The main reasons universities implement a fixed-route technology system are schedule adherence (“where’s the bus?”), schedule and route oversight, data collection, safety, and security. Operationally, a fixed route system can use computer aided dispatching to turn a manual, administrative-heavy operation into an automated, computer-driven system that allows staff to easily monitor performance, schedule adherence, estimated time of arrival, schedule variance, and evaluate performance through historical route playback and passenger count analysis. In order to meet needs of the data-hungry student population, many universities are now layering technology components on top of the university fixed route transit system, pushing data out to students in two commonly used forms. A depot monitor allows students to follow a bus along its route and see the estimated time of arrival on an internet protocol (IP)-enabled display, either a computer monitor-type screen or LED sign located at a bus station or transfer center, sometimes even in participating businesses (coffee shops are nice). Screen-based systems incorporate an automatic vehicle locator (AVL), basically a map showing an animated bus (or a bus proxy) moving around a map. AVL is an easily understood, organic interface that can even incorporate the appearance of the campus map, something already well known to students. LEDs are text-based and therefore provide more limited information, but they are less expensive than screens and usually better

able to weather the elements and thus can be used at more locations. Message monitors send information to IP-enabled handheld devices like iPhones and BlackBerries and can deliver more detail on situations affecting routes such as accidents or severe weather. Both modules are able to deliver the same information to a kiosk or Web portal that can be accessed via a computer, BlackBerry or other Web-enabled device, allowing students to view graphical displays highlighting the location of their bus and estimated time of arrival. Since students can be seen on every street corner with their own handheld computers, they arrive on campus ready to receive automatic alerts to their devices. Those still in the communications dark ages can get a message on their cell phones using interactive voice recognition (IVR) about the location of a bus, or, even more helpful, alerting them when their bus is 5 minutes from the bus stop. Getting a True Picture When universities use a geographic information system (GIS) they can benefit from some of the technology’s basic capabilities, like graphically representing employment or housing data. While helpful for planning purposes, this static use of GIS ignores an enormous chunk of ice beneath the surface. GIS is now being combined with advanced logistic algorithms, or computer-based modeling and predictive analysis, which makes for a smarter, more efficient operation. Rather than basing schedules on pure distance, or by drawing a line from Point A to Point B, schedules are now based on real-world information rather than one’s best guess. When a scheduler needs to

determine routes for getting vehicles to the right place in the shortest amount of time GIS can reference the data down to the smallest detail. For example, Alpha Avenue may be the shortest distance between two points, but it has only two lanes, no protected left turns, crosses a crowded CSX rail corridor, and is prone to flooding even in modest storms. Bravo Blvd, by contrast, is a longer path but on a modern facility with four lanes, protected turns and grade separation at railroad crossings. The software can determine that while longer in distance, Bravo Blvd is actually the most efficient route. The system can be updated as required by dispatchers, so that any new construction project en route will trigger a re-evaluation of the best route. This level of precision tells a far more complete story than a simple Google map. Another benefit of integrating advanced, automated software with a GIS real street network capability is that an operator can match up proper schedules and route assignments with the characteristics of its fleet based on the type, size, availability and capacity. This ensures that the system provides proper and efficient customer service to its students. Demand Response – Security and Safety While focused on fixed route, many universities are beginning to offer late-night service through demand response instead of fixed-route, helping students get across campus and back home after late night studying or recreational activities. For demand response service, university systems can deploy mobile data communications (MDC) and

automated vehicle locators (AVLs) to allow instantaneous communication between the dispatch office and drivers, and the real-time tracking and tracing of vehicles. An MDC terminal, or smart computer, is like a homing device from old spy movies, only it is much smarter, allowing dispatchers to track and trace vehicles from the moment they leave the home office until they return at the end of the day. University systems are particularly well-equipped to use smart computers because student ID cards are like PVC fingerprints, but with more information. If equipped with a smart card or swipe card reader, the mobile data computer captures relevant data when the student boards the vehicle. GIS-based software communicates with the vehicle constantly, informing the dispatcher about who is on the vehicle, when passengers were picked up, what stops were made and when and if the vehicle is operating safely. The driver communicates none of this information. It is all sent to the dispatcher automatically and in

real-time from the smart terminal. By integrating AVL software, a university system can offer a safe and reliable demand response service. AVL software allows dispatchers to: • Track and monitor the location, status, speed, and direction of vehicles • Find the closest vehicle, so students can be picked up quickly • Predict late vehicles and service disruptions • Estimate times of arrival • Locate a vehicle • Monitor vehicle speed New MDC/AVL solutions work with a variety of more sophisticated, smart devices such as smart card readers, in-vehicle navigation systems, vehicle diagnostic systems (i.e. “engine is hot”), automated passenger counters, automated voice announcement, and video security systems. A lower-cost alternative is a PhoneAVL. This device is a GPSenabled phone that can send location data to the dispatch center for vehicle tracking and performance

monitoring. Another option is fixed data terminals on board the vehicle. At a time when many are worried about transportation security, MDC/AVL technology enables operators to be prepared for the worst and respond effectively. Without having to speak with the driver, a dispatcher is automatically alerted to equipment failure by sensors on the vehicle and in an emergency situation, the driver can simply hit a “hot key” indicating an emergency without alerting a criminal or terrorist who threatens a vehicle. Real-Time, Real Fast Today’s transit technology simultaneously improves productivity and the overall operation, while meeting the needs of an Internetcentered student population. Rather than settling for a GPS-only solution, university transit planners can now utilize both advanced routing, scheduling and dispatching technology along with new wireless, real-time passenger communications to make student transportation affordable, safe and flexible enough to meet a data-hungry population. Tim Quinn, Executive Vice President of RouteMatch Software can be reached at tim.quinn@routematch. com. RouteMatch Software (www. routematch.com) delivers transportation and logistic technology and services, with specific expertise in demand response or paratransit systems.

Charter Rules by Samuel L. Scheib

In some towns game day service is as much a part of college football as tailgating, but FTAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new charter regulation feels like water on the fire. Here is a closer look.

Photo: Mary Levin

The sky view of Husky Stadium at the University of Washington with the backdrop of Lake Washington and the Cascasde Mountains.

usky Stadium is a point of convergence. From its lofty seats sky, mountains, verdant land, and water are layered in undulating shades of blue and green; the built and the natural environments blend as multi-story towers wave through the trees; and here academics and athletics meet when the University of Washington football team collides with PAC-10 teams among other opponents. The white hulls of the boats in Lake Washington are ornaments on an already spectacular view that should make the nosebleed seats the most expensive in the house, but they are also a means of transportation. Docks provide parking for boaters on the way to the game at this multimodal stadium; fans come by foot and bike, they tailgate in the car parking areas, and yes, they arrive in droves by city bus. It is an intermittent use that brings 70,000-odd people together for games half a dozen times per year and that is the problem. As readers are no doubt aware, new charter regulations from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) have made providing game day services a tricky situation. When the updated charter regulation debuted in January a near panic followed: IndyGo in Indianapolis immediately cancelled its long-standing park-and-ride service to the Indy 500 and other properties around the country began reevaluating their own services. A session at the APTA Transportation and University Communities Conference in April turned into an anxious round-table discussion among university transit providers about how to provide service to football games in the fall, something of a civic duty in smaller college towns. Many of these services had existed for decades, so what changed? The original regulation, first proposed in 1975 (finalized 1976), and subsequent revisions sought to protect inter-city charter service providers from competition from public agencies receiving federal funding (a “recipient” in FTA parlance). In 1986 the FTA tried again with new regulations that forbade recipients from operating charters if there was a willing charter in the area that desired to provide the service; recipients could, however perform the service if “there were no willing and able private charter operators, if private charter operators did not have capacity, if private charter operators were unable to provide accessible equipment, or for non-urbanized areas, or if the private charter operator providing the service would create a hardship for the customer.”

The difference between price and that enforcement was lax. the 1976 regs and those approved Here comes the pain. When in 1987 was that the former disSAFETEA-LU (once more, from tinguished between inter-city and the top: Safe, Accountable, Flexible, intra-city service; the latter did not Efficient Transportation Equity Act: make this distinction. But in 1988 A Legacy for Users) was enacted in Congress directed the FTA to make 2005 it included language under the three additional exceptions to the charter regulation that the Secre5 already in existence, the third of tary “shall bar a recipient . . . from which being related to this discusreceiving Federal transit assistance sion: recipients could provide direct in an amount the Secretary finds charters if there was “a formal appropriate” in response to patagreement between the recipient terns of violations, a more stringent and all private operators it had standard than the permissive “may” determined to be willing and able previously used [emphasis added]. through its annual public charter In preparation for the notice.” This was the borning cry for many a game day shuttle and the charter regs have SAFETEA-LU included lanremained more or less guage under the charter the same ever since. The General regulation that the Secretary Accounting (now, Ac‘shall bar a recipient from countability) Office receiving Federal transit ascompleted a report in 1993 for which they sistance’ in response to patinterviewed transit terns of violations, a more providers, charter comstringent standard than the panies and customers to hear opinions from ‘may’ previously used. these three affected parties. Transit agencies still thought the regulation too strict. The customers—typically groups most recent regulations (January that needed either accessible ve2008) FTA considered four issues hicles or large numbers of vehicles during the rulemaking process: for conventions and other eco 1. “Are there potential limnomic development (read: football ited conditions under which public games)—agreed. But the GAO transit agencies can provide commufound the public operators were nity-based charter services directly not taking advantage of exceptions to local governments and private in order to provide service and non-profit agencies that would not thus the concerns of customers and otherwise be served in a cost-effecrecipients were largely unfounded. tive manner by private operators? For their part, the private providers 2. How can the administrareiterated their concerns that transit tion and enforcement of charter properties were not using their bus provisions be better comfully allocated costs to determine a municated to the public, including

“

the use of Internet technology? 3. How can enforcement of violations of the charter bus regulations be improved? 4. How can the charter complaint and administrative appeals process be improved?” The latter two points clearly indicate an interest in the judicial (enforcement, hearing complaints, the appeals process) and combined with the mandatory language (shall) from SAFETEA-LU, there was more than a hint that FTA was getting serious about charters. In that opaque, roundabout way typical of federal regulations, the updated charter rules provide a revised definition. A charter service: “(1) is irregular or on a limited basis for a premium fare that is greater than the usual or customary fixed route fare or (2) service for which a third party pays all or part of the costs for the service” [numbers added for clarity] (page 2334). At first glance this seems simple enough: If a service meets one of those two criteria, it is a charter. The second criterion is unambiguous; if someone else is paying, it is a charter. The first is less so. The first “or” implies a choice; if either A or B is true, then the service is a charter. In this case that would be: [A] service is irregular or [B] is on a limited basis for a premium fare that is greater than the usual or customary fixedroute fare. An example: [A] a route that only runs during home football games for the Podunk Predators or [B] a route that normally is a parkand-ride route that also happens to serve the football stadium on a normal basis but during home foot-

Here comes the pain.

”

ball games costs twice the usual fare. This does not, in fact seem to be the case because 24 pages later (2358) in the questions section appears the following: “18) Q: If a transit agency provides service that is irregular or on a limited basis for an exclusive group of individuals, but provides the service free of charge, is the service exempt from the charter regulation? A: Yes. So long as the transit agency does not charge a premium fare for the service and there is no third party paying for the service in whole or in part.” Did you see the “but” in the question? The answer confirms that the but is in the right place. There is not, however, a parallel conjuntion in the original sentence, to wit: charter service is irregular or on a limited basis and for a premium fare that is greater than the usual or customary fixed route fare. On the first criterion, it has to be both irregular/limited and for a premium fare. Would irregular/limited service for a regular fare be okay? This seems to be the case as confirmed by question 23: “Is it considered charter service when the transit authority funds shuttles to and from football games? Regularly scheduled service is suspended on these days, but this service partially follows the existing route and is open to the public at the regular fare. A: No. If the service provided by the public transit agency costs the same as the customary fixed route fare and it is open to the public then it is not charter.” You could drive an articulated bus through that “partially.” It is important to remember that FTA is not prohibiting transit agencies from providing charters, even outside of the exemptions. If your property is running a service that you are concerned may not be permitted, perform this three-

step process. Step one: check the above definition to determine if the service is a charter. If it is not, proceed with the service. If it is, go to step two: see if anyone else wants to provide the service. This is very simple: “The rule as written prohibits a public transit agency from providing charter service if a private charter operator expresses interest in providing the service.” Step three: after providing public notice of at least 30 days, if no other provider responds to the service request, go ahead and provide the service. Getting back to the implications of the new charter rules, pretty soon the FTA printers were churning out waivers. IndyGo got one and announced just a few weeks before the May 25th race plans to continue service to the Indy 500; JTA did too and has another year to serve Jacksonville (FL) Jaguars games as it has in the past. Among the casualties are Washington Redskins fans who will not be served by public transit services. Nowhere in the regulations was it mentioned that the new rules should benefit passengers, but that did happen in Buffalo where the game day shuttle fare was reduced from $7.00 to between $3.50 and $5.20 to comply (a nice illustration of question 23, noted above). On the other hand, the Baltimore Ravens inked a deal with several charter providers. The service that last year cost $10.00 is now $20 to $25, and that is the point. Was MTA Maryland breaking even or taking a loss? It was not likely making a profit but that is not an option for a private company. Public transit is subsidized, the private companies are not and the charter regs are there to level the playing field. University services, of course, are not immune from the

charter regulations. TheBus in Honolulu will no longer be supplying service to University of Hawaii Warrior games (their $6 round-trip fare will be replaced by a $13 round-trip fare by a private company) and the University of Washington and King County Metro have made arrangements with StarLine Luxury Coaches to continue providing free service to games this year. The cooperation of StarLine indicates that the service will comply with the regulations but all parties have remained quiet on the terms of the contract. The University of Washington is not just another pretty place; it also provides an interesting case study. The city of Seattle implemented an aggressive transportation demand management (TDM) strategy in 1991 and the primary goal was to reduce congestion and parking demand around UW as the campus grew. The transportation master plan established two major conditions for the university to meet: peak hour traffic could not exceed levels observed in 1984 and the university was limited to 12,300 spaces. A U-Pass program was a major component of the plan but so was service to football games; even as the parking was limited, UW added an extra deck to the stadium, creating those gorgeous nosebleed seats. The program was enormously successful. Among those coming to campus during the peak 23% walk, 21% use transit, 10% car pool or van pool, and 8% bike. That leaves just 33% driving alone in peak hour. Those are numbers any city would envy. Game day multimodalism is high too. In 2007 Metro carried 187,000 attendees to seven games. That is about 27,000 to each game. Assuming every game sold out, that would be about 37% of all attendees arriving

by bus. The TDM strategy, however, made transit mandatory and when the charter rules were updated the university really had no choice but to continue offering transit service. The cross-town professional team—the Seahawks—were under no such obligation and rejected a bid from the same Starline as too expensive with the intent of not offering the service. Starline planned to run the service anyway by charging $12.50 each way. But just before this story was going to final design, the Seahawks had a change of heart and also reached an agreement with Starline to offer game day service for $8.00 round trip. In the final analysis there are three possible outcomes to the charter regulations with respect to football games: a charter company provides the service; a charter company contracts the service from the local transit agency; or no company wants the service and the local provider continues as before. In the first case the transit agency does nothing. There is no overtime pay, no scheduling conflicts just a loss of that extra ridership that comes on game day. In the second case the transit agency should break even. There is no longer a requirement that transit agencies post their fully allocated costs but the agency should recover at least that in any contract with a private company. And in the last case there is no change and assuming the agency (or a governing municipal body) wants to provide the service, all is well. In no case does there seem to be a catastrophe although, as noted above, game day service is seen as a civic responsibility in some towns and it can be hard to explain why a good thing went away. It will be even worse when people notice that the Independence Day

fireworks still gets bus services as might be happy to pay $10 for a happens in places like Tempe (AZ), bus ride) or charters will opt out Tallahassee (FL), Vancouver (WA), in the future and the opportunity Boulder (CO), and Charlottesville will revert to the transit properties. (VA) among other cities (rememThe games will go on and all those ber, if there is no charge, there is no operators who otherwise would be problem). Seattle, and to a lesser serving the games just might enjoy extent, Honolulu are much larger having a chance to watch them. places than the more typical college town. A look at the Associated Press preseason poll shows that Charter V. Campus Service eight of the top ten college FTA Giveth . . . football teams FTA went through considerable discussion were in cities with on the matter of university transit services for the populations of updated charter regulation. The argumet was put under 120,000 as forward that “much shuttle service provided by a follows: Georgia transit agency to a university, where the university (Athens, 112,760), determines the routes, the schedule is adjusted acOklahoma (Norcording to the university’s calendar, and the univerman, 106,707), sity pays the fares for all of the students, faculty and Florida (Gainesstaff riding the service (and charges the students a ville, 114,375), transportation or activity fee) could be considered Missouri (Cocharter service.” lumbia, 99,174), Breath easy. FTA decided that “regular Louisiana State shuttle service, even service that is designed to meet (Baton Rouge, the needs of students during the week is not charter 227,071), West because the service is provided on a regular and Virginia (Morgancontinuing basis as part of the transit system.” town, 29,361), Clemson (Clem. . . and FTA Taketh Away son, 12,816), and The story is a bit different with those university Auburn (Auburn, routes staying on campus. Question 23 asks: “What 54,348) (Southif a university pays the transit agency to provide ern California and shuttle service that does not connnect to the transit Ohio State are agency’s regular routes, it that charter? A: Yes. the other two). The service is provided at the request of a third In the party, the university, for the exclusive use of a bus small towns, or van by the university students and faculty for a the local transit negotiated price.” agency is still likely Confused? The question related to connectivity to be the only to the greater transit network but the answer dealt organization that with exclusivity. Trip Planner contacted FTA for can provide the clarity and they have yet to comment. We will keep service. If a charyou posted. ter company does step forward either Sources: Federal Register / Vol. 73, No. 9 / Monday, January 14, 2008 / Rules and the market will sustain the serRegulations vice (people paying $40 per ticket TCRP Synthesis 39: Transportation on College and University Campuses Gilmore, Susan, The Seattle Times, November 26, 2007

Mass Transit N O I T UA

C A V E S S A M

by Arterio Dominguez

Lessons learned from transit in emergency situations.

The cell phones kept ringing. As Kevin Price, the Safety and Training Coordinator for Blacksburg Transit, remembers, those brutal ring tones made April 16, 2007 so terribly hard to bear. As victims were brought out of Norris Hall after a shooting rampage that left 33 people dead, the incessant chimes coming from the purses, pockets, and backpacks of the deceased made panicked family and friends a constant presence at the grisly scene unfolding on the Virginia Tech campus. The knowledge that the intended recipients of those calls would never answer was what brought many first responders to tears.

lacksburg Transit, the transit provider for Blacksburg, Virginia, and Virginia Tech, was later honored with a Virginia Transit Association Public Service Award for its speedy and effective response to the worst campus shooting in American history. Campus buses were among the first responders on the scene because they were already there. An Iraq War veteran and a gun enthusiast were among the operations supervisors on campus as the shooting started. At about 10:00 am one of them called in that shots had been fired on campus. They were aware that there had already been a shooting earlier that morning and even though there was construction in the area— something that had disguised the weapons fire to many ears—those supers guessed that what they heard was bullets, not hammers. The buses that were on campus were quickly rerouted to the Cassell Coliseum and buses

entering campus were reversed, sending students back home. As students came out of the campus buildings with their hands up they were cleared by police and then loaded on buses and taken off campus too. Blacksburg Transit staff—including many student drivers— revised routes on the fly and called in relief operators for additional evacuation; buses were converted for use as mobile triage stations and for moving emergency personnel. Blacksburg Transit has been roundly praised for its role in these extraordinary circumstances. A new study from the Transportation Research Board, Special Report 294: The Role of Transit In Emergency Evacuation (2008) examines transit’s role in terrible days, and the last decade has seen several. September 11, 2001 was a case in point; the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority and New Jersey transit were instrumental in getting civil-

ians out of Lower Manhattan and getting emergency responders and equipment to the World Trade Center site. Metrorail served a similar purpose in Washington D.C. There was less success leading up to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. An estimated 100,000 to 200,000 people were stranded in New Orleans without a private vehicle. The plight of those people, wading through polluted water and waving from roof peaks, was a national shame. The opposite problem arose for Rita when 1.5 to 2.5 million Houstonians took to the road all at once. Traffic jams and vehicles that ran out of fuel blocked interstates for hours. In one horrific accident 24 people died making the evacuation of Houston deadlier than the weather event. The report was well under way by the time of the events at Virginia Tech and there is no mention of April 16 in the report, but much of what is contained in it validates the actions of

Transit officials had shown a video called “The Mark” to student drivers. Some laughed. Mr. Price told them that they needed to be prepared for an incident; soon they were in one and to their credit most stayed at their posts.

Blacksburg Transit and the region’s first responders. If, as the saying goes, the ancestor of every action is a thought then it will come as no surprise that transit agencies most involved in emergency evacuation are those that are thoroughly integrated in planning emergency evacuation and part of the decision-making process in an emergency. After the shootings it was clear that transit’s involvement in these processes had made a significant contribution in speeding the evacuation and response of emergency personnel. Being involved with the emergency planning process is essential, but Blacksburg Transit had something even better: practice. The point Kevin Price made repeatedly in his presentation to the Transportation and University Communities Conference in April 2008 was that the transit property had ample and regular contact with emergency responders, particularly through Virginia Tech football games. Supervisors regularly spoke with police and EMT services so that they had a rapport. They had phone numbers and

attended meetings together. The police already monitored the transit radio frequencies, which also helped speed things up. Mr. Price reminded the group that “there were far more buses circulating the campus than police cars,” and that put the Blacksburg Transit in the know, extremely important in this incident. Big cities have big city football teams and games but those affairs are considerably different from the more typical college town. That gives transit agencies serving universities a special opportunity to become familiar with first responders. The Virginia Tech tragedy was a sad reminder to the rest of us

that we can and should use those planned events to plan for unplanned events. Or better yet, to practice for them. At safety meetings prior to the incident, Blacksburg Transit officials had shown a video called “The Mark” to student drivers (“a fast-paced training video depicting a fictionalized version of an all-too-real threat against a metropolitan transit system,” available from the FTA website). Some laughed. Mr. Price told them that they needed to be prepared for an incident; soon they were in one and to their credit most stayed at their posts. The Virginia Tech tragedy was the worst college campus shooting we have seen, but not the first. Charles Whitman climbed to an observation deck of the 32-story administrative building of the University of Texas at Austin in August 1966 and opened fire with a rifle. By the end of his rampage 14 people, including the gunman, were dead and an additional 31 wounded. We can hope that 4-16 will be the last of such events, but in the meantime we better practice for more.

Student Drivers UNITRANS (UC Davis) – Texas A&M Transit – University of Georgia – University of Virginia – Virginia Tech – Ohio State

Car rental companies are squeamish about renting to people who have yet to reach the quarter century mark, and those compacts and sedans only set the rental companies back 25K or so. It is understandable then that transit agencies might be reticent to enlist college students as bus operators, trusting a population that is almost exclusively under 25 with buses worth upwards of $300,000 and carrying precious cargo: thousands of other college students. In this unscientific study, we look at six transit properties located mostly in the south (VA, GA, TX) but also one in Ohio and one in California. All six are university properties and although the group is small the circumstances at each are remarkably similar and the experiences of these university properties are applicable to public agencies serving large university populations. The responses are summarized on the following page, but some notes are instructive. Why Students? They are on the same schedule as the university, they are cheap, and they are paying for the service. The schedule is significant because it is helpful to have transit staff on the same calendar as those needing to be moved. Public transit properties that serve universities—especially if they have routes that are specific to campuses—no doubt see the extra board swell during holidays and spring break. Using student operators can eliminate those bumps on the calendar. Even within the daily schedule having student operators can make things easier. Tom Holman of Ohio State describes: “We have a lot of routes in the afternoon, evening and weekend that are not 8 hours long and it is hard to piece things together to make an 8 hour day for a regular employee. Most of our student shifts are between 5.5 and 6.5 hours long.” He continues, “It works very well to

have full-time drivers working first shift routes when students are in class and have mostly students covering the evening and weekend shifts that are less desirable to folks with families.” That works for students, non-student operators and management. Students are less expensive for three reasons: several of the properties in our data set simply paid fulltime staff a higher hourly rate than the seasonal student driver; students do not get benefits; and the schedule is important here too because student drivers, like all other students, want to leave (or have to if they live in dorms) when school is not in session. Not so with the professional driver who expects to be paid for 52 weeks per year and may not be welcome at the ‘rent’s place for a few weeks here and there throughout the year—and perhaps the entire summer. Two universities specifically noted that they like using students because the university is giving back to the students: the kids are paying fees for transportation, the transportation division, in return, offers employment on campus that fits with the students’ schedules. Turnover, CDLs, and Discipline: Our assumption was that turnover would be high; even if every student served for four years without any disciplinary problems, the university transit agency is still going to lose roughly 25% per year due to graduation. The responses bore this out with turnover ranging from as high as 50% to as low as 15% (at Ohio State where student drivers were by far the lowest percentage of total drivers, 67%). All the properties paid all or most of the cost of CDL training and thus high turnover seems like it would be a big problem. Nope, “just the cost of doing business,” says Ronald Hamlin, transit manager at UGA. It seems

that the overall savings of student drivers negates the expense of the CDL training. Besides, it is not like public properties don’t have turnover problems, or problems with . . . Discipline. This too was not the problem Trip Planner had expected. All six university agencies said that discipline is what it is: there are lates and no-shows and there is an extra board to cover them. Some agencies fire the students outright, others had point systems,

TCRP

Transit Cooperative Research Program

like strikes, but none of the managers who responded thought it was a big problem (graduation takes more drivers than firings). The students do much of the policing themselves anyway. Says Rebecca White, director of UVA Parking and Transportation services, “The biggest pressure to show up comes from their co-workers since most of our shift changes are on route and have a very narrow window of exchange.”

TCRP Synthesis 39 Transportation on College and University Campuses

TCRP Synthesis 39 is almost eight years old and focuses primarily on the events of the ten years preceding its publication, but is still resoundingly current in the topics it discusses; as of this printing gas prices are roughly 400% of what they were in the mid-1990s. The lessons of university transit—with students being highly sensitive to cost—are perhaps more important than ever. This Distilled Reports summarizes the findings of No 39, but if you like what you read and want more, it is mercifully short (fewer than 60 pages), reads easily, and can be found at http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/tcrp/tsyn39.pdf. Universities are growing, losing parking to new classrooms, and expanding existing transit systems or starting new ones; changes in federal funding like ISTEA and TEA 21 have helped to fund them. At the same time increasing enrollment has brought additional traffic and demand for transit services. The synthesis was generated from three sources: a literature review, case studies, and a survey. The focus of the synthesis was on agencies that were truly public transit even if run by a university for its students. To achieve this end, the survey was limited to properties

with 10 or more vehicles to avoid systems that were restricted to being parking or dormitory shuttles although parking shuttles are parts of many of the services described. CHARACTERISTICS of the Respondents TCRP received 30 responses (out of 48 sent) and the responding transit properties/universities provide a broad description of how colleges and universities are served in the United States. Some (19) were in true college towns where the university is the main employer,

the other 11 in large, economically diverse urban areas; 16 reported being the only transit provider in the area. Half of the respondents were university-operated and two-thirds had some form of unlimited access. Unions or other bargaining units represented 14 of them. None of the colleges had enrollment lower than 10,000 but 9 had more than 35,000 students. One thing that was very clear from the survey data and the tables created for the synthesis is that systems targeting students are very efficient and productive, putting up high numbers of passenger trips relative to the resources consumed. In keeping with the law of supply and demand that says people will consume more of something if it is free, properties that have unlimited access programs produce more trips. Among the services provided on-campus circulators were the most common, but there were also parking lot shuttles, and fixed-route services to off-campus housing complexes. The single largest expense is the wages and fringe benefit costs of drivers and that helps explain why 18 of the 30 reported using student drivers (although there are other reasons. See the Round Up, page 27). In 7 of the systems students represented more than 90% of the workforce. LESSONS LEARNED There are three significant differences between systems that are primarily university-oriented and those that are not, namely the relationship between parking and transportation, the role of students in operating the system, and interaction between the campus and the community beyond. There are two types of university-oriented systems, those that are university-owned and those that are government-owned (i.e. a city or transit authority) properties. The university property is the product of “state law, the history of town-college relations, and the relative capabilities of the university to operate a transit system versus a separate agency, and circumstances when the decisions [to begin the service] were made.” Often separate services are the result of historical circumstances: universities in small towns began operating transit when municipal services did not exist (common in the 1960s and 70s) and later the university and town could not agree on control and financing of a joint venture and thus remained separate. When services are provided by a city or transit authority it is usually by contract and those contracts between city and university can be the most common form of interaction the two enjoy. Universities have their own concerns, priorities, and financial difficulties and

tend to prefer a “cordial but nevertheless arms-length relationship with the transit agency” rather than to be closely tied to the success and solvency of the property; the participation of university officials on transit boards is rare. Students, however, are often participants in the governance of university transit whether owned by a municipality/authority or the university, serving on advisory boards or even the board of directors (one case in the study). Two properties in the survey were run by student government. It is surprising that there are as many universityoperated services as there are. Funding mechanisms vary widely, but if a property is a public system it is eligible for state and federal funds that multiply the local contribution. Twenty of the properties in the survey received some portion of its funding from local, state, and federal coffers. The 10 that did not neither requested nor were offered such funds. This is likely because the regional system operating in the same community, the “designated recipient,” would have kept those monies for its own operations, a strong motivator for universities to leave transit operations to the community transit agency. The multiplying effect of state and federal matching funds is a powerful motivator for university systems to merge with or turn over operations entirely to local service providers, especially since, one way or another, the university is going to have to fund the transit it provides. Student fees and parking revenue are the most important means of paying for the service with only general university revenues and cash fares remaining. Only 3.3% of respondents required all passengers to pay a fare versus 53.3% that provided fare-free service, and fare-free was largely paid by fees: of the 15 agencies reporting the percentage of revenue coming from fees, 7 reported 80% or more with one at 93% and three at 100%. There is one great advantage for keeping university transit in-house. Parking and transit services are “inextricably linked,” with transit supplanting parking needs on campus or helping the university move parking to remote locations. When parking and transit are controlled by the same entity, extremely rare for public agencies, the policies of the two transportation arms are far better coordinated than when made by different, even competing, organizations. “Many campus transit systems trace their origins from parking lot shuttles that expanded into more comprehensive systems. The parking office was often responsible for starting a transit system to provide the parking shuttle service. . . . Often the same administrative unit responsible for parking also manages the

campus transit operations.” Universities often realize that transit is a lowercost alternative to providing more parking, particularly in dense, central parts of a campus. To build remote parking, transit shuttles are essential. Briefly looking at costs, parking can cost from $250 per space for surface parking and more than $2,000 per year for structured parking and that is not considering the net gain resulting from building a garage on a former surface lot (where the number of new spaces is smaller by the number of surface spaces being replaced). Faculty members pay more for spaces than do students (which often means they believe they should be guaranteed a space), ranging from $50 to $500 per year in this survey. The fee rarely covers the cost of surface parking and “in no instance do they cover more than approximately one-fourth of the cost” of a garage space. Why do universities desire to reduce parking demand and increase transit use (and other modes like ridesharing)? Cost of providing parking, as noted above, is the primary factor. Secondly, there is little space to build more parking. Environmental quality on campus is the third reason noted, “broadly defined to include open spaces, esthetic concerns, and general ‘livability.” The least common reason, and one cited in larger cities, is a desire expressed through local government regulations, to control the traffic coming to and from campus. The synthesis notes that in the past universities have been exempt from zoning or other land-use controls, but in recent years the trend has been to tame the 500-pound gorilla and enforce the same regulations to which private property owners are subjected. Safety and security has also become a focus for university transit. Transit systems offering late night services can keep students from hitchhiking or walking, prevent rape or other assaults, and reduce the incidence of drunk driving. The synthesis also discusses students as part of the operations and administrative structure. About half of the systems employed students as drivers, and 30% in management positions. “Giving back” employment to the students who pay transportation fees, along with lower wages (See chart), is a major motivator for using students as compared to the disadvantages of the need for training (particularly the expense of a CDL) and high turnover. Those that do not use students are often restricted by labor agreements. In addition to driving and administration, students are frequently involved in advisory committees.

UNLIMITED ACCESS SYSTEMS Universities, either themselves or through contracts with a transit provider, have been offering unlimited access to transit since the 1960s. This “free” transit compares well to using a private automobile because drivers have already included the very high costs of auto ownership in their budgets and make monthly or even yearly payments for car payments and insurance. Transit, by comparison, provides a daily reminder of what a trip costs (even if that is low compared to the hidden costs of car ownership) and finding exact change can further complicate the matter. Having unlimited access, in effect hiding the cost to the passenger of transit, removes a major barrier. The three main attributes that define an unlimited access system are eligibility, funding, and cost reimbursement method. The target market for these services is students but there are other considerations as to who is eligible to ride. Commonly, only students are permitted but some systems also allow faculty, staff, and visitors; Clemson University provides fare-free service to the entire community, but that is a rare occurrence. The question of who can ride is significant because of the funding mechanism. If the funding comes from student fees alone should others be allowed to ride without paying? There is also the concern for capacity although in most cases students make so many trips it is unlikely that a few faculty members are going to overwhelm the system. Funding typically comes from student fees, 63.3% in this study (fees are not mutually exclusive; multiple sources can be used by one university). The second most popular method is parking fees and in the case of the University of Washington all parking permit purchases come with a U-Pass as an incentive to try transit but also because they are paying for part of the service anyway. Parking fines are also used (13.3%) but that is not a stable source of income. Universities that can afford it can skip the hassle of the student fee and just pay out of general funds (as 23.3% did in this study). If the transit property is a department of the university the cost reimbursement is a budgetary matter where student fees might cover a percentage and parking revenues the balance. When the property is a public agency there are three ways the reimbursement could be determined. If the public property is assuming services formerly provided by the university, the university could just provide a certain amount based on what it had spent to run the service rather than based on the amount of service provided or the amount consumed.

The latter two are more common with an established hourly rate to cover service provided, or a per-trip/passenger price established for service consumed. Implementation of an unlimited access program can be daunting; the financial consequences to either party can be great if ridership estimates are incorrect. The study cites ridership increases in the first year of implementation that are staggering, ranging from 50% at the University of Florida to 200% at the University of Colorado Boulder. But the increases in subsequent years are more modest, 8-10%. A way to minimize the risk is only to allow unlimited access on certain routes at first, like a university circulator, and expand later. Another obstacle to implementation is selling the idea since it will often require students voting to impose a/another fee on themselves or the university agreeing to use its own general funds. On this account, a review of successful and unsuccessful unlimited access implementation reveals four ingredients to success: “strong student support, a willing and open-minded university administration, a capable and credible transit service provider, and patience.” Improved student mobility is a major selling point for unlimited access, but reducing campus congestion and increasing student safety are also significant. For university administrators, cost effectiveness is the most compelling reason for such a program. On many campuses structured parking is the only means of increasing the number of spaces and that has a heavy per-space price tag. In urban settings, the university may not have the space to expand parking even if desired, so unlimited access is the lowest cost option. In a few instances, air quality was a concern and Congestion Mitigation Air Quality grants (CMAQ) from FHWA were used to start service. Since student fees are the most common way of funding unlimited access service, student support is essential for successful implementation. While typically overwhelming student support is a necessity for such a program, fee-funded unlimited access will not happen unless there is a willing administration at the university, a group that is usually loath to increase parking or student fees. To make this happen, the university administration must understand the benefits of the unlimited access system (lowered demand for parking, cost savings over additional parking, attractiveness to students of the lowcost transportation alternative, air quality in some places, etc.). No transit property will ever convince an unwilling student body or university administration to implement an unlimited access system, but transit systems are indis-

pensable sources of information for universities entering or considering entering the process. Lastly, there must be ample patience on all sides. Sometimes universities, even large ones, are unable to transition to a full unlimited access system because of a lack of confidence in the transit operator, concerns about finances, or the inability to reach agreement about funding the service. In some cases the universities have shifted to what Synthesis 39 calls a “limited” unlimited access system. Typically these are on-campus only services or those that just barely extend off-campus to nearby student housing. Penn State University opted out of a student-fee supported system when the Centre Area Transportation Authority, or CATA, was formed in the early 1970s and instead started operating its own campus circulator. CATA provided paid service to students to the campus, and PSU moved them around once they got there. There followed an interesting example of the market intervening. Soon a large apartment complex was built and the owners contracted with CATA to provide discounted unlimited access passes that the complex could hand out to students as a means of attracting tenants. This worked well for the apartment and the students, but also provided ready income to CATA. Budget cuts caused the program to be phased out in the 1980s. Later more apartments were built and due to zoning requirements had to establish similar programs for providing transit. This time the apartments only paid for service between their properties and the university. Eventually there were a number of these agreements in place providing singledirection transit to students who used a campus circulator now provided by CATA once at PSU. Taken together the apartment and circulator routes accounted for 85% of CATA’s ridership. That percentage reflects a level of success. But when efforts were made to establish a truly unlimited access system, the students balked. They were happy with their home-to-school and on-campus service so why pay more to have unlimited access? Nothing prevented students that did want such a service from buying a monthly pass. Also, if such a system were implemented, the apartments would be let off the hook for their participation that was a requirement for their projects being approved in the first place. That is a tough predicament and something to consider if eyeing a staged implementation of a full unlimited access system.

CASE STUDIES Clemson and Clemson University At the time the synthesis was written the population of Clemson the city was about the same as the number of enrolled students at Clemson the university (13,000 and 17,000, respectively), but the county had 104,000 people and was growing very quickly. The only transit in the area was the university-paid parking shuttle that was contracted out to a private company to the tune of $350,000 in 1995, the last year of operation. In response to the same pressures detailed elsewhere in this report, the university and community hired a consultant to write a recommendation for starting transit in the community. The recommendation was for a two system system—university and city—and as the first step in implementing the program the city hired a transit administrator. They never moved to stage two because the administrator convinced university and city officials that an integrated system serving both would better serve the needs of the entire community. Clemson Area Transit (CAT) began in 1996 as a

50/50 venture between town and gown. The university continued to provide the $350,000 it had previously paid for its parking shuttle to the community service. This dedicated funding was then used to leverage matching state and federal funding, something that had not been available to the university because it offered no eligible service. Under the arrangement the university got better service for the same money and the city got service, period, with no additional cost. Two very unusual aspects of the Clemson service is that it is not paid from student fees (the money comes from general funds) and there are no fares; CAT did not even bother to install fareboxes or any other collection system because there was no intention of ever having fares. As readers may have already guessed, there is a problem here in growing. The system is very efficient with high levels of service and ridership on a budget of less than $1 million per year, but additional service needs additional revenue. CAT found some from corporate sponsors for a night bus and has also extended service to parts of the county under contract with the county.

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There are, however, no plans for fare collection: since most passengers are students, the small percentage of paying customers would be dwarfed by the expense of adding a fare collection system. Michigan State and Capital Area Transportation Authority MSU, started in the 1960s, was a pioneer in providing university transit service and CATA had been providing service to East Lansing for almost as long. As is common with many cities with parallel systems, CATA and members of the community had long desired to combine the systems, but, typical among cities where this does not happen, the university administration had no interest in changing what to them was an acceptable system. The synthesis describes the change in circumstances in the late 1990s when “the four ingredients necessary for a successful combination came together.” The university leadership changed and the new administration did not see operating a transit agency as part of its mission of research, education, and outreach and was open to combining systems. Secondly, there was the now familiar problem of parking and congestion and the recognition of expanded transit as part of the solution. CATA already had the operating expertise and a good reputation in the community; it could expand its services if there was the financing for it. Lastly, the state of Michigan needed to be willing to provide greater funding, and as it happened the state did increased transit operations funding from 33% to 50%. The assurance of additional funding allowed CATA to assume control over university service. One interesting note is that the merger had to happen without a student fee as the administration had already made a “read my lips” commitment to students not to add mandatory fees. As a result, students pay a fare, but it is heavily discounted. In 1999 MSU and CATA entered into a 10-year agreement by which CATA would provide transit to MSU. The agreement specified that CATA would assume MSU bus services, maintaining the same level of services for the first year at no charge to the university. The concerns of the two institutions are nicely described by the synthesis and reproduced in full:

and, perhaps, viewed itself as being at the mercy of an outside organization. The contract procedures to devise, approve, implement, and pay for new services address these real issues. From CATA’s perspective, they were charged with the responsibility for providing high-quality transit service, but did not have the freedom to make service changes in order to maintain this high-quality service and response to increasing demand. Equally as important from CATA’s perspective was that it might be forced (either contractually or because of public opinion) to maintain services that it could not afford to operate. Again, the CATA/MSU contract developed a number of creative ways to minimize the risks involved in the change in responsibilit for transit services.

After the first year of operation both parties were satisfied with the service, MSU to the degree that it agreed to provide $400,000 in funding to support the addition of new services. Indiana University Bus Service and Bloomington Transit The combination of IU Campus Bus and Bloomington Transit is almost certainly unique. Like so many services they started out serving their particular constituencies, which then began to overlap as Campus Bus moved into the city, and Bloomington Transit started serving student destinations. Not only were there service areas very similar but also were their budgets and vehicle hours. “Each agency expends approximately $2.2-2.3 million per year and produces approximately 50,000 bus hours of service.” Of course, campus transit being more productive than city services, Campus Bus produced 1.9 million trips per year compared to BT’s 1 million (1999). On funding, BT got state and federal capital and operating assistance whereas Campus Bus revenue came from individual pass sales and cash fares. In the early 1990s representatives from both agencies started examining possibilities for how they could improve regional transit. They ruled out a merger but because both were housed in outdated facilities they decided to build a joint operations and maintenance facility. Bloomington Transit got the state and federal capital grants for construction and the university provided the land, the value of which counted as the local match. The new facility opened in 1997 and is home to both systems, although each operates independently. “A fence divides the parts room for each system; however, the systems share common maintenance areas, driver rooms, The CATA/MSU contract includes very creative solutions that and restrooms.” are designed to address the concerns of both sides in what The institutions also worked together to move might be viewed as a threatening situation. The university gave students. In 2000 a universal bus pass was instituted: up control of a bus system that has served them well for more than 30 years and trusted a major element of the campus Students taking 6 credit hours or more paid $21.20 per infrastructure to an outside agency. Also, the university was semester for unlimited access to either system. concerned about losing control over the cost of the operation

Beyond the Car Card Since this is the first of many articles to come, let’s start by addressing the often overlooked staple of transit marketing (the one this column is named after)...the Car Card. These simple signs are seemingly forgotten by transit operators, as well as riders. With the recent surge in transit ridership on campuses and by choice riders across the country, we have the opportunity to re-introduce these forgotten fragments of marketing. Consider them a “Conduit for Communication Connectivity” Like any product that’s re-invented, it’s best to start by evaluating it’s Pros and Cons. Because I like to always end on a positive note, we’ll start with the cons: Car Card Cons ----------------------Issue: Hard to Manage Limited Staff. I don’t think there’s a transit authority in the country that has a full staff. No Department more so than marketing, since it is many times a single person. This problem is often compounded with undefined pro-

Notice

cesses (inefficient and cumbersome). Idea to overcome this: Create a Monthly or Bi-Monthly Production Schedule. Create a Car Card request Form and provide it online. If possible, make your form web-based for easier tracking. If your transit system offers a calendar, include deadlines for car card submissions with clear contact info. Issue: Blah, Blah, Blah Don’t just post a memo...Market the Message! The typical transit notice is just that “a notice”. The down side is that it’s a notice that doesn’t get noticed. Here’s an example of a way to make your message memorable (see inset below). Issue: Negative Messaging Do you have a drug problem? Are you Pregnant? Gambling Addiction? Have a DUI? Want to quit smoking? Why would you want to read these? I’m ready to slit my wrists after reading them (of course, there’s a car

Noticed

NOTICE TO RIDERS: Star Metro Now Offers Free WiFi on this Bus To use this service, log onto talgov.com/starmetro You will asked to accept the terms by clicking on the icon. You can then begin using the internet. Just Open Your Browser, Accept the Terms...and Your On!

To assist our clients with “polishing up” pieces designed In-House, we provided StarMetro with Car Card templates and branded services like Free WiFi with an ID that related to their larger umbrella brand.

card for that too!). While I’m all for marketing these services, can we at least limit how much of our inventory goes towards these. Ideas to overcome this: How about capping these social services at 25%. You can use the other 75% of your inventory to market city services and destinations that are available year round. Tie this program to a partnership program with Museums, an IMAX theatre, or other destinations that could help you market transit and sell transit passes at a POS (point-of-sale) in their building.

25%

Social Services Ads

75%

Marketing City Destinations available year round.

Issue: Out of Date It’s probably safe to say that 5 out of 10 Car Card messages are out of date (an event that passed or a service change that happened last year). Idea to overcome this: Do an art contest in area schools and have the artwork displayed on your buses. Since it is just artwork, and not timely information...youll have something pleasant for riders to view. Those schools could then take a field trip riding transit to see their art on display...and you get increased ridership. And no, this is not a charter; during the base period students come in classes boarding a regular route and paying a fare (even if done on a purchase order). Use this effort as a means to expand School Field trips using your system (Leave their School Buses at the school).

keting to riders. Let’s use that to our advantage to leverage partnerships with other groups. Most transit properties also have more flexibility on advertising inside rather than out. So, think of organizations who share common destinations (like downtown restaurants or museums). Excellent way to Cross Promote Have Free Wi-Fi on a route? Have a partnership with the paper? Want ideas from riders on how to improve service (feedback)? Have a new Ride Guide coming out with New Routes? Use the Car Card medium to promote these items. Transit marketing has evolved incredibly over the past 10 years. We now have GIS Monitoring of buses, Google Transit, Wi-Fi on Buses, SMS marketing, etc. Let’s get the word out using one of our best mediums to reach riders...our own interior signage!

Now, the Pros ----------------------Hard to Miss When you’re riding transit with no other items to read, We’ll talk about some of these other items more in upyou can’t help but read these, even the ones you really coming issues. Until then...I wish a smooth ride for you, don’t want to. It’s like a mini-billboard...you can’t turn it and your riders. off or change the channel. Let’s take advantage of that. Brian Ramos is a partner in ThinkCreative, a firm that speGreat Bartering Tool cializes in Brand Overhauls, and enterprise web developWith increased ridership comes increased value of mar- ment for public entities.

- Voltaire

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