The bus shelter is no longer in use, so Yan and a collaboration of other urban planning enthusiasts brainstormed some ideas for this untapped source: an outdoor gallery space; a covered bike rack; a place for a swing (personal favorite). On April 15, Yan and his friends set out to hear the public’s ideas for the shelter and put up chalk board panels. People passing by made several suggestions, including turning the shelter into a “Pocket Cafe, a live music venue, a florist shop, a community garden, etc.

Unfortunately, Yan and Co. went to visit the shelter today and found a note from the Coast Mountain Bus Company (the bus division of Vancouver’s Translink) putting an end to what was one exemplary method of generating customer feedback. Its worth taking a closer look at this situation as there are some important lessons to take away from it in regards to marketing transportation.

While Translink has the right to do what they want with their property, it is unfortunate that they refuse to acknowledge that the space could be put to better use. A new bus stop (w/o a shelter) a little further down the street has render the shelter irrelevant to the B-line, but that does not rule out the possibility for the shelter to increase ridership. Transforming the bus shelter into a cafe or a garden would make it a destination spot that would be easily accessible via mass transit. Furthermore, the use of the word “deface”, indicates that the public (for whom the bus shelter, and more importantly Translink is meant to serve) destroyed the property and criminalizes people who want to improve on an underused space. It would be one thing if the space had been overrun with graffiti and trash – colorful lanterns pose little threat to anyone or anything, including an inactive bus shelter. Unfortunately, this is a common occurrence in our cities and it only serves to discourage people from expressing their opinions and to derail positive changes within communities.

Taking a defensive stance against something desired by the community only works against Translink. Perhaps these same folks have some great ideas on how to improve bus service? Now, it is less likely that they would be compelled to speak up and their opinion of CMBC is certainly not favorable. The purpose of a transit agency is obvious – to operate and manage transit systems. Simply telling people what you do and what you provide is only one marketing strategy. Providing reasons to get people out of their cars and on transit is an equally important way to draw new riders and to improve an agency’s image in the public eye. Had CMBC’s reaction been different, they may have come to be regarded as an integral part of improving Vancouver’s communities. Listening to riders (and non-riders) is essential for cooperative planning and for the continued advancement of mass transit.

P.S. #Space98 is on Twitter – join the conversation!

(all photos are from Brandon Yan’s blog, Masters Planning)

The business of transportation is dependent on a large labor force to operate the systems that get us to work, to school and to places beyond. The men and women that transport New Yorkers in particular also have the unfortunate burden of navigating through constant congestion and waves of public scrutiny. To acknowledge the important service that these overlooked drivers of the M15 bus route provide, Lizzy Showman and Kathleen Fiztgerald recently launched ‘I <3 M15 Bus Drivers‘, a social network for the bus community in NYC.

The M15 bus route is one of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Select-Bus Service route in Manhattan. The bus provides service from East Harlem to the South Ferry Terminal in Lower Manhattan with stops along First and Second Avenue and is the second busiest bus route in the U.S., serving 16.5 million riders a year. Fitzgerald and Showman, MFA students at the School of Visual Arts came up with the concept for I <3 M15 as part of an assignment in their course, “Can Design Touch Someone’s Heart?”.

As for whether or not the design touched someone’s heart, I’m not entirely sure. The ‘ I <3 M15 Bus Drivers’ team had a sample cushion for display at Short Talks, Big Ideas: Transportation at the Tech Frontier, a panel discussion hosted by the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation, Policy & Management on April 9th. The bright blue and while color scheme was uplifting against the black background and it was lightweight for easy carrying. The color choices may even be inspired by the ones used to identify Select Bus Service routes, but that is unclear/unconfirmed. No one likes a poorly-designed [insert anything here] – so it’s safe to assume that efforts in custom designing the cushions had an added effect to an already charitable gesture.

Currently, initiatives are in the works to move the idea beyond a simple one-time gift campaign by taking the next steps to enhance the “social community” aspect of the campaign. The site has a Twitter-esque “Feed” where M15 fans and drivers can continue to share their appreciation for drivers, post photos of interest or share an experience on the route.

This idea has promise, considering such initiatives are slowly getting attention from transit agencies, with DDOT in Washington D.C. being a good example. As highlighted in a earlier post about the use of social media within transportation agencies, DDOT has made strides by using Twitter to both communicate and receive feedback from riders. It will be interesting to see how the ‘I <3 M15′ social network may evolve into over time, who ends up participating and (ultimately) what a social network for buses could contribute to improving bus operations.

Until then, Happy Busing!

Starbucks. McDonlads. Apple. FedEx. What do these companies have in common?

In reading the list of corporations above, an image of their logos most likely came to mind right away (or maybe a product). A good logo is the first way to attract and communicate with users of your products, public transit being no exception to this. A few months ago, Mark Byrnes of the The Atlantic Cities published a short piece on ‘Great and Not-so Great Subway Logos’ with some usual suspects making the ‘Great’ List, including the London Underground logo. Without a defined criteria stated by Byrnes, it appears he focused on typeface and fonts to determine what made a logo better than others.  However, the choice of font is only one of many aspects that makes for a good transit logo. Take for example, the New Dehli subway logo, which was honored as a ‘Great’ logo:

Byrnes: “The lines inside the circle resemble a section of rail tracks with the vertical line suggesting speed.”

Like a bad joke, if you have to explain it, it’s not a good joke (or in this case, logo). Without the explanation, this could be a logo for a lot of other things  (“No Smoking”?), which makes it actually not-so-great for marketing the subway. Liverpool’s Merseyrail is a commuter rail that moves an approximately 100,000 passengers per day. Their logo is not nearly as impressive as their ridership. It really doesn’t look too great on socks either:

The use of M’s for metro systems throughout the world is almost universal, which makes the letter very useful as a design theme for a logo. A logo using an ‘M’ then needs to incorporate other design elements to be unique, like color choice. Byrnes’ argument that the grey and yellow Merseyrail symbol makes for good colors for transportation design isn’t very strong. The trains are grey and yellow, so the color scheme is directly related to the stock. But against a white background (as shown on their website), its hard to read and without scanning the rest of the site, some may conclude that Mereyrail is a construction company. Color is important, but the bike storage ad from Meresyrail below demonstrates that a green/yellow scheme can be just as complementary as a grey/yellow one. The incorporation of the bike wheels in the logo reads like text and is well executed. This logo could easily be used for a bike share advertisement…should that ever be something the company pursues.

On the other hand, many of the unfortunate logos that were deemed “no-so-great” really were not so great. There were a few stand-out logos, however, that deserve some re-critiquing.  The individual subway lines of Budapest have a rather Transformers-esque thing going for them which Byrnes calls out. Fun facts: this is also the logo for the subway’s iPhone app and the #1 subway line is an official World Heritage Site.

As this is the logo for the #1 line and not the entire system, this isn’t that bad of a logo. If anything, this would be a great opportunity to brand each line with a superhero theme: each one could have a character that could advertise service changes, etc. for specific lines. This logo would also look great on merchandizing (shirts, mugs, superhero toys, etc.). It should be noted that the greater system resorts to the M default for its logo with a fun arrow that, unlike the Delhi logo above, actually does suggest speed (photo credit: Rita Mitsuko):

Moreover, a good logo should be a first step in a larger branding effort for a transit service. Case in point: the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority currently uses a circle with an M inside of it like many other Metros do. This wasn’t always the case, as the agency underwent a major re-branding of its system in 2008 that is regarded as quite successful. To further ride the coattails of this good press, the agency executed its  “Opposites” campaign in 2010 that used iconic word pairings with a black/white color scheme.  The goal of this campaign was to extend the concept with simple visuals and to add color and positive messaging. Talk about an effective campaign: the ads promote both LAMTA’s services and the negative qualities of private vehicle use. Transit is not just about mobility, its a lifestyle.

Surprised that the NYC subway logo didn’t make either list – one can travel to the far ends of the earth and find a person who would recognize the subway logos in a heartbeat. That, however, may be the result of New York City’s branding efforts over the decades, and not so much MTA’s.

What transit logos do you think are great? Not great? Please feel free to share ones in your neighborhood!

The last two days in Washington D.C. drew me to the Preston Auditorium at the World Bank offices in Washington D.C. In it’s fifth year running, Transforming Transportation brings together a wide spectrum of policy makers, transportation professionals, environmentalist and academics (to name a few) to discuss sustainability issues as they relate to transportation world-wide. This year focused on methods of scaling up sustainable transportation best practices in cities throughout the world. So what better way to start off things than with Jamie Lerner, the former mayor of Curitiba in Brazil. If there ever was a a city (or really, a country) that has made an example of itself through its transportation systems, it would be Brazil.

(Jamie Lerner and Manish Bapna, Acting President of the World Resources Institute)

According to Lerner, there are three things that cities can do to make fast changes to sustainability practices:

1) Teach children about sustainability. During his time as Mayor, Lerner was heavily involved in the production of “Convenient Start”, a documentary on Familia Folhas, an school outreach program that educates youth on the merits of living sustainability. The premise that the younger generations will have to teach their parents on how to live a healthier and more eco-friendly lifestyle.

2) Use your car less, live closer to work, make less waste. While much easier said than done for many cities throughout the world, this is pretty straight forward.  It also gave way for this fantastic drawing of Otto:

3) Develop “Multi-Use” Cities. This was the most inspiring talking point of his talk as many cities are finding this approach a very tangible way to invigorate public spaces. Lerner empathized the need to assign different roles to a space, using an example of a multi-use market. In Brazil, some outdoor markets are hosts to several different events throughout the course of ONE day (i.e., a regular farmers market in the AM, an art and music showcase in the afternoon and a night market in the PM) as opposed to finding different venues throughout the city to have three different events.

This event also marked the 10-year anniversary of EMBARQ, the organization that graciously organizes Transforming Transportation each year. In association with the World Resources Institute (WRI), EMBARQs’ mission is to catalyze and help implement environmentally and financially sustainable transport solutions to improve quality of life in cities. In addition to this annual event, the organization publishes several reports and studies, and is also responsible for The City Fix, a celebrated blog highlighting sustainable transportation initiatives and news across the globe.

Specifically, EMBARQ released From Here to There, a comprehensive guide for the branding and marketing of public transportation. Highlighting successful examples of campaigns that increased and retained ridership as well as secured finding and political support from government officials, the report has important and relevant information for transit agencies here in the U.S. It was only fitting that the second day of the event included a panel on communications and marketing, which included a presentation from Ethan Arpi, one of the authors of the report.

(The EMBARQ team during their anniversary presentation.)

Thank you EMBARQ for ten years of inspiring and important work. See you next year!

After making a mandatory visit to the Krispy Kreme in Dupont Circle (apologies for misleading  TRB attendees astray from the Metro!), I made my way into the Mariott to visit the exhibit booths. Only open during the first three days of the conference, the exhibit hall was a quick and (partially) interactive way to catch up on the latest trends and practices in the transportation field.

Started my self-guided tour with a visit to the American Public Transportation Association. APTA does excellent work advocating for the availability and accessibility to public transportation for all Americans. They’ve got a tough job ahead as transit agencies across the board are slashing budgets and service. I took some time to speak with Michael Hemlsey (pictured below), Membership Administrator for APTA. If your organization is interested (and eligible) in joining forces with this important organization, he’s your man. Goodies from the table included some great buttons of truth: Public Transportation = JOBS.

I work at a civil engineering company, and as such, have developed a perverse interest in road signs and construction materials. Naturally, I made a point to visit some of the signage companies and eventually found myself at the IMAGE Microstation booth. While road sign design hasn’t changed that much over the years, IMAGE has a sustainable twist via the used of recycled e-waste for their quality products.  20 years strong, IMAGE has invoked e-waste and recycling practices to create sustainable products. I’m finding it hard to not point out the irony of the signs’ usage on our roads and highways, which have driven us (pun intended) down a very unsustainable path.  Goodies from their table include this STOP sign coaster which I use almost every day for my tea/wine/beer:

After digging through some old TRB journals (available for sale) and failing miserably at a driving simulator (the program was well-executed, my driving not so much), I made my last stops at the booths of two Canadian-based companies you should keep your eyes on. The first visit was with Eco-Counter based out of Montreal, who’s motto is “Counting People, Analyzing Data.” And their eco-counter does just that via mode-specific sensors: a SLAB Pedestrian Sensor, a PYRO Pedestrian or Bike sensor, the ZELT Inductive Loop (bikes) and the TUBES Bike sensor. This company gets extra love from me as they’ve made strides to evaluate cycling data – such data isn’t standard for most traffic studies in NYC unfortunately. The sensors are minimally intrusive and can be installed with little effort into the road or on other existing surfaces (under manholes, etc.) for several months – no need to hire people to count for multiple sessions. Count data is transmitted  to the Eco-Combo Logger (pictured below) for analysis. In short, this machine is a major threat to one of my basic job duties and I hope it never comes to the U.S. (I kid).

Last of the goodies: also nabbed a neat little Model-City game from Inro (also from Montreal), a traffic modeling software company. The set is comprised of wooden city elements (skyscrapers, etc.). I am not ashamed to admit that I played with it during lunch.

At the end of my touring, I came away with the overall impression that technology-wise, the transportation industry is doing just fine for itself. As ridership increases on transit systems and more of our population becomes urbanized, it will be important to have people developing technology that will enable transit agencies to meet the increase in demand in spite of their financial capacity to maintain or expand services.

Tomorrow: Concluding day at TRB!

* Disclaimer: I was not paid in any way to endorse the products mentioned in this post. I attended this conference independent of any organization.

NOTE: ITDP is co-sponsoring Transforming Transportation, a two day conference on sustainable transportation hosted by EMBARQ. I will be attending this later in the week!

Later today: The generational gap within the industry is painfully apparent. The young transportation professionals attending TRB this year are the future, and they’ve got some big plans. A walkthrough of the Exhibits room and attempt #2 at napping in the Roundabout Room are also on my list…

(Listed by order from the workshop, not by personal preference!)

Webinars – QUICK FACT: 55% of TRB webinar attendees are employees (or otherwise affiliated with) state transit departments. Lots of potential to develop the digital meeting/conference for the agency strapped for funding.

Video – Maggie Thompson with the Kansas Dept. of Transportation presented her agency’s PR videos that have been successful in generating discussion about transit and infrastructure projects….even with negative or positive press. She also emphasized incorporating graphic, and (still) pictures to enhance the promotional and informational value of promotional clips.

e-Newletters: Berine Wagneblast spoke briefly on how he finds stories for his celebrated Transportation Communications Newsletter. You may not think you know who he is but if you have ever flown into JFK, LGA or EWR, used AirTran  or taken the NYCT subway you’ve hear his voice! Bernie is the voice of NY Metro Area transportation, literally and figuratively. If you are in any way interested in transportation (and you should be if you are reading this), sign up for his newsletter ASAP.

QR Codes – AKA ‘Quick Response Codes’. Andy Palanismay of Citizant (better known as @transportgooru) gave a detailed rundown of how these codes are made and how they’ve been used in transit via bus tracking programs. The D.C. Circulator has been using QR codes to help riders plan their trip as well as give feedback or comments about Metrobus service. QR codes have a lot to offer the transit world, 81% of people have seen a QR before but are not aware of what exactly they are. A QR code can be easily placed on the side of a bus/train/ferry/etc. within a advertisement and occupy minimal ad space.

Twitter – The DDOTDC Twitter page permits the District Department of Transportation to respond to customer feedback quickly and show that they’re a dependable authority. John Lisle provided several examples of Tweets from the agency’s followers – whether it was in favor of DDOTDC or not. Even when a seemingly negative tweet gets posted, the team at DDOTDC have some quick staff to manage their response:

(Frank Hebbert of Open Plans is to the left, he gave the last presentation on web-based planning tools and coordinated Transportation Camp (see previous post))

Blogs – The NYC DOT currently uses The Daily Pothole, a Tumblr blog, to help New Yorkers keep track of all the potholes that the agency is working to fill. With humor and a simple design, NYCDOT has opened another channel of communication and brought some light on a subject (potholes and the flat tires they create) that makes drivers grouchy.

There is no excuse for the industry to pass up this opportunity to retain and potentially increase ridership with the help of these webtools! Thank you Andy and Stephanie Camay of URS for coordinating and organizing this workshop! There are several sessions at TRBAM that will speak to the use of social media in transportation this year, there is no doubt that these tools will be a part of transport practices in the future.

Tomorrow: Posters, Posters, Posters (and some fun in the Roundabout Room?)

• the use of social media by transit agencies
• improving the rider experience on public transit
• methods to improve outreach methods to the public
• collecting and using data for planning and operations
• mobile transit apps for mobile use

Topics were suggested by participants that morning on-site and then Transpo camp staff created a schedule of all sessions for the day. The un-conference method really gave the impression that there is both a desire to see more work done towards improving the experience of taking public transit and the use of social media tools to enhance the public’s perception of transit.

My first AM session hosted by social media gurus Meghan Makoid (@mamakoid), Andy Palanisamy (@transportgooru) and others reviewed the usefulness of generating hashtags via Twitter to get users to share their positive experiences using transit. #transitmemory asks for people to tell a 140 story about a good experience, #TranspoHaiku allows for creative verse and #transitpickuplines…is self-explanatory! The #TranspoHaiku was particularly sucessful – even Ray LaHood couldn’t resist making one (note: he was not at the event). Attendees were asked to come up with their own, my earnest stab at creative writing is below:

traffic is no fun | why drive when you can subway | get there quick today

After lunch, Editor-in-Chief David Alpert (in the photo above) and Assistant Editor Matt Johnson from Greater Greater Washington led a session on the use of blogging in advocating transit campaigns that re-energized me to keep improving this blog. Alpert opened with 5 things blogs can do well:  inspire, inform, organize, coordinate, and critique. Take a look at GGW‘s site and you will see that Alpert and Johnson do all five very well for the Greater Washington D.C. metro area.

Out of all Big takeaways from TranspoCamp, the biggest one is that the use of social media is growing rapidly – both within the transit realm and beyond BUT tansit agencies have been slow to test out Twitter and other social media tools. What implication this may have is readily apparent, as the general feedback found on sites like Facebook and Twitter is negative towards public transit systems. Furthermore, individuals employed by transit agencies feel pressure or are prohibited from being (too) openly outspoken about their employers – thankfully some have created their own internet presence absent of their daily work lives and shared their successes and frustrations in their efforts to get agencies to embrace social media at TranspoCamp.

Tomorrow is a first for me: heading over to Wooley Park for the start of the Transportation Research Board’s 91st Annual Meeting. If there is any organization that has analyzed the relationship between social media and transportation with great care, it would be TRB! Will be posting (hopefully) on-site at the convention center during sessions, wi-fi and computer battery life pending…

Not all systems, however, are on board for International Free Transit Day. NYC’s MTA will not provide free rides for NYE (but there will be no fare increases in 2012 and many people coming to the city would take transit anyways, so perhaps that’s an even trade).  BART in San Francisco will extend service hours later into the night, but will not provide free or reduced fares. Ironically, Las Vegas will offer free rides on its local bus service…not sure what impact that will have as it is legal to walk on the street and drink alcohol there, but if even one person decides to not get behind the wheel after a night of drinking, then the city’s efforts will not be in vain.  

As discussed in other stories on this blog, any opportunity to attract new riders or to improve the image of public transit in the public eye should not be taken for granted. The argument could be made that former marketing efforts on the agency’s part have failed to communicate what options are available – and in certain cases that is not far from the truth. Initiatives such as this is one way to reverse this trend as it  provides an immediate way to test-drive mass transit. May initiatives like this spread the good word for public safety and transit into the new year!

In the spirit of the holidays, MetroChange, a project started by three NYU Interactive Communications program students gives straphangers a good reason to hold onto their MetroCards. With the exception of monthly and single-ride passes, there are times when a pass with a random .20 cents left is doomed to find its way to the station floor  but the MetoChange project would allow passengers to donate these leftover amounts to charity. MetroChange recently finalized designs for a kiosk (see below) where physical cards could be deposited for recycling and the fares would be donated to charity. Now the group’s founders, Genevieve Hoffman Paul May and Stepan Boltalin want to start a dialogue with MTA over logistics on collecting and distributing donations.

Most MetroCards tend to be discarded on the floor to sometimes be collected by scavengers or lucky passengers. Multiple cards can be combined into one card at a station agent booth, bu many are either unaware this is possible or are tourists who don’t need to keep the cards beyond their departure date. The project’s founders would like to see MTA on board with sponsoring the project, even if those remaining fares would be a loss for MTA. Discarded cards that find themselves on the floor of subway stations are already a loss for the agency, so if anything MetroChange would extend the value of money accounted for within MTA’s system. If MTA chooses to sponsor the kiosks, they would match the amount from the kiosks each month. Alternatively,  an independent organization would donate the money without the transit authority’s involvement.

This is not a marketing campaign in the traditional sense, but it does allow MTA an opportunity to respond to the negative image of waste and excess that is pervasive in the press and in public opinion. Moreover, as sponsor, the agency would be following an example set by other transit agencies. BART in the San Francisco Bay Area, in partnership with the East Bay Community Campaign has coordinated a donation program called Tiny Tickets that encourages riders to send their passes to any of the 150 affiliated nonprofits. These organizations then take the tickets to BART which reimburses the total value of the tickets in the form of a matching donation.

The subways are arguably the lifeline of New York City. Its time to pay it forward, literally.