with “going green”.
Chicago RTA’s Direct Mail Campaign Making Transit Use Easier Chicago’s Regional Transit Authority is the second-largest in the nation with over two million passengers per day. In 2004, RTA used direct mail marketing to inform people about which route(s) go by their house. This was a response to a RTA survey that indicated many people do not ride transit because they are uncomfortable with trip planning (TCRP, 2004). Postcards were sent using address data that simply indicated: “Did you know? Route 12 stops a few blocks from your house?” The mailing directed recipients to RTA’s website so they could understand routes and trip planning. The campaign was a successful effort to overcome the barriers to a first transit ride by providing users with basic route information.
Conclusion and Recommendations The barriers to increased public transportation are vast and cannot be overlooked. If, as the 2009 Yale study suggests, there are Americans amenable to change, but 30 percent of them do not have viable access to transit, marketing can do little to increase ridership. However, many Americans do have access to public transportation and are not using it. Transit authorities are in a unique position to capitalize on the interests of the new market of environmentally conscious households and their real willingness to change daily habits by marketing transit directly to this group. More than that, marketing has an ability to dispel non-users biases that convenience alone cannot solve. Though there are several impactful marketing campaigns that have capitalized on the inherently sustainable function of public transportation, few are as effective in broaching the issue that many
non-riders see public transit as purely a social welfare function. Perhaps marketing campaigns should take this issue head-on by increasing imagery of socio-economic diversity. If more transit authorities are going to follow the lead of the aforementioned examples, authorities that have experimented with this target marketing need to demonstrate a stronger correlation between the effectiveness of marketing and increased ridership. Since 2005, many transit authorities have mobile device texting applications and route planning integrated with Google Maps. The marketing of these tools has shown wide application in provoking the curiosity of non-riders. Lastly, the preferences of emerging environmentally conscious households will likely become clearer as they increase in number and are studied more comprehensively. The transportation sector should follow other industries’ lead in examining the data on this group and use it to their advantage.
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