The MT Position

Have you met Ed and Ned? They ride your system. In fact they ride every transit system in the world. Sounds like these two guys are the ultimate transit junkies, doesn’t it?

Who are they? Ed is the representation of your everyday rider. Ned is the representation of your not everyday rider. And together they make up your total customer base.

Ed rides everyday or nearly every day as a commuter, student, a committed rider or a true transit dependent. Ned on the other hand rides much less often to go shopping once a week, or goes only to ball games or festivals. Perhaps Ned’s car is being repaired or the car pool is talking the day off.

Actually, there are lots of Ed’s and Ned’s and knowing something about each is helpful. By the way, it is very likely that the Ned’s outnumber the Ed’s. How else would you explain the fact that despite Ned’s riding less frequently, your ridership is about the same each weekday?

That makes your Ned’s pretty important riders. Take a minute and ponder the possibilities. If a Ned rides once a month, then a Ned riding two or three times more is a significant increase in ridership. The point is that you already have a relationship with Ned. You know Ned. Ned knows you. Think of it this way: Your best customer prospects are ones already using your service.

Get to know these riders through surveys and observation. Ask your riders about their riding frequency, the length of time they have been using your system, how they pay their fare, and the reasons they ride (work, shopping, school, etc.). Pretty soon, you’ll have a feel for the proportion of Ned’s to Ed’s.

Let’s say you have 10,000 riders (not trips) each weekday, and your surveys show that 60 percent ride every day. On average the other 40 percent ride 1.25 times a week. Knowing this you can make an educated guess that the ratio of Ned’s to Ed’s is 4 to 1. That would mean that there are 6000 Ed’s and as many as 24,000 Ned’s. Instead of 10,000 generic customers, your base may be as high as 30,000 customers.

Turning a Ned into an Ed takes some effort, but the payoff is huge. Identifying Ned’s and courting them with incentives like university and employer pass programs, service frequency and route improvements, relationship marketing programs and improved customer services are all ways to migrate Ned’s into a higher level of use.

That doesn’t mean that you forget the Ed’s riding your buses, ferries and trains. But doing more to make Ned’s into Ed’s will pay off by making the Ed’s more loyal and committed customers.

Like I said earlier; think of the possibilities.

Keep the thread going by adding or modifying the above principles, or by sharing a story that relates to your experience with Ed’s and Ned’s. Let me hear from you!

Joe Caruso is Senior Consultant for Brecon Hill Consulting. He’s the former marketing director for the Milwaukee County Transit System (WI) and has over 32 years of transit marketing experience. He welcomes your comments at jcaruso@breconhill.com.

Posted by William R. Coulson
Member, RTA Board of Directors

Chicago’s Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) was established by state law to provide financial and planning oversight to the operations of the ‘service boards” — the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) (light rail and city bus), METRA (commuter rail) and PACE (suburban and paratransit bus), who actually provide the transit.

The RTA and the service boards have been warning Illinois political leaders for years that the system was seriously underfunded and heading for a serious breakdown. Last year an independent agency, the Illinois Auditor General, confirmed this financial crisis in a lengthy report. Simultaneously, the RTA and the service boards painstakingly formulated a “Moving Beyond Congestion” plan outlining their vision for strengthening and expanding the six-county region’s long-term transit, assuming new funds were available. Virtually every mayor and every county board in the six-county RTA region endorsed this plan.

Thus, there is no dispute that the financial crisis is real and that there is a long-term plan to significantly improve the system. Enter Illinois’ unique brand of politics.

The RTA is financed largely through fares, a sales tax imposed in the six counties and a state match of 25 percent of the sales taxes raised. So optimistic was the RTA board in December of 2006 that the 2007 budgets included as projected revenue more than $200 million in what was called “New Transit Funding.”

A bill was introduced in the Legislature to raise modestly the sales tax rate to generate this new revenue for the foreseeable future. The bill also proposed to significantly increase the RTA’s oversight authority of the service boards. The CTA and its unions even negotiated pension and benefits concessions, contingent on the bill’s being enacted. The Chicago media has consistently characterized this proposed dedicated funding of critical infrastructure as a “transit bailout.”

The governor, however, announced that he would veto the bill because it raised a “tax on people.” The state capitol, Springfield, became a welter of intrigue and distrust among the leaders, over a wide variety of issues — the most “poisonous” atmosphere statehouse veterans have ever witnessed. Legislators and the governor could not even pass a state budget until after months of overtime sessions. The governor called 17 different special sessions of the Legislature; the legislators finally just ignored these calls and did not even show up.

There was no budgeted “New Transit Funding.” The service boards’ 2007 budgets had to be amended accordingly to cut services dramatically, layoff employees, postpone maintenance and raise fares. The cuts hit the CTA and Pace first. These agencies announced that these cuts would become effective on Sunday, September 16, 2007. Springfield remained locked in gridlock. Then, four days before this “doomsday” deadline the governor announced that to forestall the cuts he would authorize the immediate advance to the RTA of the $37 million budgeted for the first six months of 2008 to paratransit service and senior citizen discounts. The governor wrote that a long-term resolution of state mass transit funding “is not far off.”

Once again the service boards amended their 2007 budgets to include this advance, and it fell to the RTA board to determine if it could approve these new budgets as “reasonable and prudent” under the RTA statute. Nine votes were required. In a contentious 10-2 vote, the RTA board approved this advance of next year’s moneys. I was one of the two “no” votes. To me, this was like a bad “pay-day loan,” except that even a pay-day loan has a reliable, dedicated source for repayment! One of the board members who did support the measure literally held his nose as he voted “yes.” So six months of next years’ paratransit and senior discount money is now gone — spent this year! Without new monies, next year’s cuts would have to be even deeper. But doomsday was averted for a few weeks.

More gridlock in Springfield. The bill to raise the RTA sales tax and to establish more RTA oversight got a majority vote in the Illinois House (61-48), but the sponsor withdrew it because it needed a super-majority (71 votes) to take effect immediately and to survive the promised veto by the governor. The CTA and Pace had no choice but to again plan for “doomsday” cuts, this time effective November 4, 2007. Again, layoff notices and route elimination notices went out. Community groups and the unions protested. This time, two days before “doomsday,” the governor announced that he had found $27 million in a state infrastructure bond fund that he would transfer to the RTA to stave off the cuts. Again, the governor wrote that a permanent “fix” “can be completed in the near future.” The Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate wrote that they “understood fully” the “urgent need” for a “major increase in stable, long term funding,” and pledged to work to that end “over the next seven to ten days.” This advance of capital funds had to be approved by the Federal government (late on a Friday afternoon in Washington!). Democratic Senator Dick Durbin and the Republican Bush administration agreed to the last-minute proposal, thus accomplishing in an hour the kind of statesmanlike bi-partisanship that has so far eluded Illinois leaders. Doomsday was again averted — for now. The “doomsday” cuts, now more severe then ever, were reset to commence now on January 20^th, 2008.

Yesterday, November 28th, the governor called his 18^th special legislative session, this time to consider only the mass transit crisis, saying, “we cannot afford more delays.” A new funding proposal had been touted by several legislative leaders — the dedicated transfer of regional sales tax revenues from gasoline sales to transit. This would provide a more modest sum to transit than would the increased general sales tax proposal, and it would leave a gaping fiscal hole in the general state budget (where the revenues would otherwise go). Many legislators, including those from downstate Illinois, insisted as a pre-condition the passage of a capital funding bill for highways and schools which would be funded by new casinos in Illinois. The gas sales tax bill failed by a vote of 57 -53 (60 votes are required). “Doomsday” faces us again on January 20.

What to make of it all? I have tremendous respect for the elected public officials who face the daunting task of balancing the state budget in the face of competing demands from constituents. They will have to decide ultimately how important mass transit is to the well-being and economic vitality of Illinois. And the people — who elect them — will have the final word on all this.

As an appointed board member of the RTA, I share the responsibility to provide the best transit to the people of the six-county region that the allotted financial resources will responsibly permit. If our elected leaders want a second-rate system, that is what they will get.

William R. Coulson is a Chicago attorney and former federal prosecutor, who was appointed to the RTA Board on April 1, 2007, by the Cook County Board of Commissioners.

By Leah Harnack
Mass Transit Associate Editor

It’s not often you go to a conference and the welcoming reception is at a night club with lights flashing, music pounding and there is what looks like a woman, but what is indeed a man, belting out songs on the stage.

It was a fun, energizing way to meet up with familiar faces, get acquainted with new ones and to kick off Rail-Volution 2007: Building Livable Communities with Transit.

The conference was three days in Miami Beach, with more than 50 workshops and 17 mobile workshops that provided hands-on learning and a trade show featuring 24 exhibiting companies.

When talking to friends about the conference I was going to be attending, the name was a bit misleading as they thought it was simply a conference about trains and passenger rail. Rail-Volution covers much more, looking at how all modes of public transportation can shape a community.

Workshops illustrated some of the latest creative solutions to common challenges and reiterated the importance of cooperative relationships between everyone when it comes to successful transit.

I don’t know if it was from the hot sun, the exhilarating nightlife or the restful beach, but the conference had a relaxed ambience with quite a bit of humor on the part of the presenters.

But more importantly, it provided examples of what can be accomplished and what has already been accomplished. Many of the common challenges were addressed, including parking, partnerships, gentrification, climate change and of course, funding.

In the workshop TODs and Responsible Development in Lower Income Communities, James Hencki, senior urban designer with PB PlaceMaking, talked about planning with the community of West Baltimore.

At the end of a weeklong charrette at the beginning of the process, a small group of vocal dissenters presented unforeseen negative attitudes due to their anger, fear, anxiety and frustration.

Hencki stressed to us the importance of responsible development: everyone has a safe, decent place to live, to succeed you need a place to call home, hard-working people should be able to afford a home and necessities to live there and children deserve an opportunity to succeed.

He concluded his presentation sharing that the second community workshop was very well attended after they had learned a few things that made all the difference in collaborating with the community.

It’s better at their speed, not the planner’s speed. Reach out to the community early and thoroughly. Identify and support community leaders. Focus on the community’s issues, not planner issues. Gender and ethnicity do matter. And, to build a place, you have to build trust.

At the Implementing TOD at the Regional Level workshop, Tom Boone, TOD project manager with the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) in Denver, Colo., had his own list of information to share — his Top Ten Ways to Fail at Collaboration:

10. Make speed your priority

9. Speak negatively about stakeholders in their absence.

8. Hold unfocused meetings.

7. Send irate emails when someone does something you don’t like.

6. Use jargon when you don’t want people to understand.

5. Be exclusive.

4. Don’t concern yourself with how you will resolve conflict.

3. Want more for yourself, your cause or your organization.

2. Don’t take the painful steps to agree on the problem you are trying to solve.

1. Push for your favorite solution and hope others will acquiesce.

The question and answer part of the discussion maintained some humor, despite the tough topics being addressed.

Boone talked about DRCOG’s breakthroughs in behavior in the community through marketing and was asked how he felt DRCOG did at communicating with the community prior to the campaign. He responded, “I think we sucked at it.”

It was good to have a session such as this, where attendees could hear the steps involved that improved the communication and the effect that has had in the community.

When asked about the three biggest challenges in the Bay Area, Steve Heminger, executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in Oakland, Calif., answered, “Parking, parking and parking.” He then added, “If you build it; they will come. Especially if it’s free.”

Some thoughts on solutions revolved around what people should be charged for parking and to build parking in a way to make it easier to turn into development as an area changes. A parking lot is easier to turn into a multi-use development next to a transit station, as opposed to a multi-story parking garage.

Understanding and Using Federal Legislation and Regulations provided a lot of useful information, especially for those not familiar with the FTA’s funding process.

Mariia Zimmerman, vice president for policy with Reconnecting America in Washington, D.C., discussed what is going on now on the Hill and the impact that is having, or could have, on transportation dollars.

SAFETEA-LU is important, but we should be showing equal enthusiasm in the energy bill she pointed out. Climate change and transportation are key issues for energy and transit has not been in the climate change discussion as much as it should be.

Another big concern is that when SAFETEA-LU is up in FY09, the highway trust fund is projected to be down to $0 and they could look to transit dollars for money.

To win support in communities for public transportation, Zimmerman says, “Make public transportation personal.” Transportation is the second biggest expenditure for the average person but often people don’t realize it.

Rail-Volution provided many examples of specific strategies that illustrated how public transportation creates sustainable and livable communities. Hopefully next year we will see you in San Francisco next year as more industry leaders share success stories and lessons learned.

So just what is the difference between marketing and public relations? Are they the same thing?

Actually, they’re two different yet complimentary disciplines. Marketing is a process within which the practice of public relations can be a highly effective tactic. PR, as it’s more commonly referred to, most often uses methods that exclude paid advertising. It’s not surprising that as advertising costs increase and media choices multiply, many companies, including public transportation organizations, are using PR to get their messages out.

When it comes to PR there are many tactical choices such as newsletters, brochures, news releases, media events and so forth. Certainly creativity plays a role in making PR effective. But to be consistently successful requires an underlying PR philosophy I call the “5 Be’s”. Here they are for your consideration:

1. Be Principled. Honesty, accessibility, fairness and accuracy make for an ethical foundation on which to build a credible PR program. A good example of ethical principles is the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) code of ethics. PRSA members are required to subscribe to the code which you can check out at http://www.prsa.org/aboutUs/ethics/preamble_en.html. Even if you don’t belong to PRSA, these ethical guidelines should serve you well when conducting PR activities.

2. Be Focused. Focusing on the recruitment and retention of riders or on your organization’s reputation provides not just a conceptual anchor for your PR efforts, but a basis for measuring your results.

3. Be Aware of Your Audience. Just like any other marketing effort, PR programs require the discipline to identify and communicate to a target audience. Messages and activities need to be crafted to deal with those audiences. It may be a simple as geographically “zoning” a news release for service changes, or as complex as creating advocacy communications pieces for multiple audiences.

4. Be Integrated. Your PR efforts should always be consistent with the messages used in your ads, internal newsletters, and other points of contact you have with target audiences. The net result is that each marketing tactic reinforces the other making your entire communications effort much more than the sum of its parts.

5. Be The Brand. If your brand personality includes excellence, reliability, friendliness, etc., then the people who represent you in word and deed should be emulating those qualities. Branding isn’t the sole responsibility of the marketing department, but every one in every corner of your organization who comes in contact with your customers. In essence, it’s the “public” part of public relations. When choosing spokespeople, outreach specialists, customer service representatives, operators and anyone else who becomes your public face, be sure their personality matches your organization’s brand personality.

Keep the thread going by adding or modifying the above principles, or by sharing a story that relates to one or more of the “Be’s”. Let me hear from you!

Joe Caruso is Senior Consultant for Brecon Hill Consulting. He’s the former marketing director for the Milwaukee County Transit System (WI) and has over 32 years of transit marketing experience. He welcomes your comments at jcaruso@breconhill.com.

Posted by Leah Harnack
Associate Editor, Mass Transit

Many of us are getting back to our offices after attending APTA’s Annual Meeting in Charlotte this past week.

Early mornings, late nights, active days, different time zone, unfamiliar territory, more information than the mind can digest in a day—I am exhausted.

No different, I imagine, than many other travelers, who are, of course, some of the people you are serving everyday.

Before continuing on here, I want to make sure it is clear that none of this is meant as a criticism of CATS. Every staff member I talked to was everything an agency could hope for—very friendly, very courteous. This is a look from an outsider’s view, coming to your city and riding your system.

When my husband and I travel we rely on public transit, Amtrak and motorcoach. My Charlotte experience was similar to countless other experiences. Maybe it’s because I’m a bit cranky and unable to sleep on the plane because of the guy snoring so loudly next to me that I decided to pull out my laptop and start typing away.

My visit to Charlotte started with a 6:00 a.m. flight. After getting off the airplane I staggered through the airport and shuffled to where I thought I was supposed to go to catch the bus that would take me to my hotel. I was digging through my bag, looking for change when a man wearing a bright orange t-shirt approached me asking, “A-P-T-A?”

After getting a free bus pass and reassurance that I indeed was standing where I needed to, I learned that this overly tech-savvy gentleman, who typically works normal business hours utilizing GIS-based solutions to optimize routes and scheduling, was out early this Sunday morning at the airport searching out conference attendees to offer any assistance in making our trip downtown a little bit easier.

As anyone would assume, that’s a common scenario at conferences such as these. Countless dedicated staff out at all hours doing a variety of things that they probably never imagined would be in their job description so attendees can focus on making the most of the conference.

My trip back was a bit more of a bumpy ride.

I forgot to check where to catch the 5 from the hotel to the airport, so I asked one of the bellhops if they knew. Just as I’ve run into at countless hotels, they had shuttle buses I could take, could call me a taxi, but no, he didn’t know where I could catch the bus. OK. I understand how that goes.

I figured I would just start walking and find a stop. Came across a bus stop sign right out in front of the convention center and at the corner, waiting to turn my way, was a No. 5 bus. Timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

There weren’t any route numbers on the bus stop sign, so I guessed it was for all the buses going this way as that must be a fairly busy stop. This serves as a great reminder—never assume. No. All buses do not stop at that stop. The bus drove past.

At this time there were masses of attendees boarding countless buses for a tour. As buses were pulling away and things were quieting down, I asked a group of CATS folks that were orchestrating this organized chaos, where I have to go to catch the bus to the airport.

They were finishing up what looked like quite a feat of organization and I would imagine sorting masses of people on bus after bus, is not what they are used to doing. They were confirming this and that with the voices coming from their radios as they were trying to sort multiple pages of lists, all while answering a myriad of questions from people like myself.

I don’t know where the miscommunication or misunderstanding came from, but walking down two blocks like I understood, did not seem to get me to where I should be. The bus stop sign listed countless routes, but there was no number five anywhere on the sign.

It wasn’t until a local was commenting with a friendly smile, “you look lost,” that I realized I was just standing there staring off into space. Unknown to the world around me I was calculating, rationalizing, well, and a little pouting mixed in there. Am I reading the sign wrong? Did they tell me wrong? Did I hear them wrong? Do I wait here? How long do I wait here?

The kind man said he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think I was in the right place. That was good enough for me to convince me I should probably make the two-block trek back down to where there were still CATS staff lingering.

For those of you there, you can attest to the fact that it was hot — unbelievably hot. In a suit and heels, pulling luggage, I staggered back to where I had been a few minutes ago.

Twice during all of this, taxis had shot a quick I’m-here-if-you-are-looking-for-a-ride honk. By this time, very, very tempting. But no. I’m always fighting with the editor of our local paper trying to convince him that even if people don’t take transit everyday, if they just commit to it 10 or 15 percent of the time, it does make a difference. I’m stubborn. So I stagger up to the spot I started where there were some different CATS folks working.

I’m assured it’s a quick, short walk to the bus transfer center and I will find it there. Down two blocks — again, take a right, another block or so and I will see it.

Sweat starting to bead on my face, the lining of my suit damp with perspiration, feet crying to get out of heels, the rickety wheels of my suitcase bouncing on a cobblestone-like sidewalk, I head out on what I hope is the last leg of my excursion.

I make it.  And now I am in this huge transit hub, rows and rows of buses — way too much to take in at this point of exhaustion.

I find a CATS employee and he points me to where I need to go. Back outside, in front of the hub.

I get outside and there’s another staff member. Feeling a bit uneasy at this point, 30 minutes from when I first left the hotel to get on a bus, I confirm with him. He reassures me I’m in the right place, showed me where I could have a seat until the bus would come and told me it would be there in only seven more minutes.

Where’s the biggest problem that created this chaos? OK, I hate to admit it, but looking back, it was me. Before leaving for Charlotte, I did the trip planner on their Web site (thank you for allowing me to enter landmarks and not have to look up exact addresses!) for my trip from the airport to the hotel.

I wasn’t sure when I would be leaving, so I never looked at a trip planner for the return trip. I just figured I would get on at the stop I got off at. Yes, now I know that I cannot do that. When I did arrive at the airport, out of curiosity I pulled up the CATS Web site and the trip planner told me to walk to the transfer center and pick up my bus there. Lesson learned.
 
Again, CATS had friendly staff and drivers, an extremely clean bus; it was a great ride, so there are no complaints about CATS, just to share the perspective of someone that could be your passenger one day.

I now know what I could have done to make my trip with transit easier. What could CATS have done to make it easier for me? What could your agency do to make it easier for me when I fly in to your nearest airport?

If we want more people to take public transportation, how can we make it more convenient? People flying in to a city don’t have a car unless they rent one. What do you do to entice the traveler to transit instead of the taxi?

Leah Harnack
leah.harnack@cygnusb2b.com