At the beginning of the year I like looking at our stats from the previous year to see what drew the most attention on our website to see what our readers are the most interested in.
When I look at the past year, there weren’t many surprises as the topics that normally draw the high views continued to draw the high views. Project updates, Election Day results for ballot measures, advancements in technology and leadership changes all came out on top.
A few anomalies for the past year included coverage of the American Public Transportation Association’s Bus & Paratransit Conference and International Bus Roadeo due to the many properties that had travel bans to North Carolina, where the conference and roadeo were held.
Continuing with APTA, the resignation of former president and CEO Michael Melaniphy and the news of the New York Metropolitan Transportation authority pulling out of the association were also at the top.
While most of the stories related to technology are about new ways it’s being utilized, the bust of the straddling bus out of China was a top-viewed story – a story that created a lot of discussion about how to invest in infrastructure and plan to improve transportation to best serve communities.
Read more on our top stories of 2016 at MassTransitmag.com/12296389
The year ahead will hold a lot of unanswered questions as a new administration takes its place in Washington, D.C., and technology continues its evolution at a record pace. Autonomous technology and smart cities are changing the way people could move and we can anticipate seeing product launches at two major shows in North America this year, UITP’s Global Public Transport Summit in Montreal in May and the APTA Expo in Atlanta in October.
I was recently asked, as well as other industry professionals from various fields, to weigh in on trends to watch for 2017. Trapeze Group compiled, “The 9 Transit Trends that will move Us in 2017,” and you can see that at bit.ly/TransitTrends2017
While there were no surprises, the diversity of everything facing our industry shows we’re in for a wild ride in the year ahead.
