From zero-emission buses that reduce gasoline consumption and lower carbon release to connecting communities of all income levels to their local economies, bus and light-rail systems provide proven solutions for issues impacting cities. Though a vital component of mobility, increasing ridership in public transit remains a challenge due to various factors including communication gaps, lack of community engagement, and safety concerns.
Whether it be awareness, building trust, or better positioning bus and rail in the minds of regular riders, officials must address the issues that prevent more riders from embracing the benefits of public transit. A more aware, informed, and engaged rider population makes the promise of public transit a reality and provides a growing base to demand further innovation and expansion of services.
Developing strategies for increasing local transit ridership can come from many areas. However, these three pillars provide a strong foundation for effective outreach and improved outcomes:
Understanding how each of these areas can drive stronger public transit participation can help organizations better plan their efforts.
Communication and engagement: The power of information
As with any public sector organization or private sector business, marketing campaigns are an important way of educating and informing prospective customers. With public transit, that includes highlighting the benefits to riders and the greater community.
Often, agencies can do more to share their evidence base for both outcomes and policy decision-making with their communities. Creating an “always-on” engagement mindset enables organizations to improve on services iteratively and identify initiatives that require deeper consultation, allowing organizations to approach larger projects from an informed foundation. This mindset can augment rather than replace the need for long-term community engagement initiatives.
The need for gathering and incorporating feedback from the community to improve services and better understand rider needs stands as a critical outcome for agencies in, “The Rise of The Engagement Ecosystem: Public Transit.”
Building a strategy with cross-functional collaboration, shared success metrics, and meaningful community experiences at the core can help nurture a mindset shift that touches every aspect of the agency. Tactically, ecosystems are achieved by implementing feedback touchpoints throughout the online and in-person passenger journey. Ecosystems leverage best practice community engagement, design thinking, agile delivery principles, and, most importantly, a willingness to adapt and learn.
Success metrics are the most integral part of building and using an ecosystem. This creates a common language to truly embed a customer-centric mindset and ensure the delivery of meaningful growth. For public transit, this can include:
- Ease of service: Measured by asking customers how easy (or difficult) it was to interact or complete a service transaction.
- Satisfaction with service: Measured by asking how satisfied (or dissatisfied) customers were with the service they experienced.
- Trust in service: Measured by asking how much customers trust services to work in their best interests.
By establishing a firm groundwork based on communication and engagement with the community, transit agencies can better be positioned to address the needs and concerns of both current riders and those wishing to increase their public transit usage.
Safety and innovation: Public transit cornerstones
Two of the most prevalent areas impacting public transit are the two-sided coins of safety and innovation. Each of these topics represent both the benefit and the perceived challenges of public transit, created mainly by less-informed public opinion. For example, the public nature of bus and rail leaves many potential riders with the misconception that transit options are often unclean or dangerous. However, the reality is quite different, with the American Public Transit Association reporting that 79% of buses have security cameras on board for increased safety, and more than half a million employees dedicated to operations, maintenance, and non-maintenance of public transit services nationwide.
Stressing the need for clean, well-maintained vehicles and stations to enhance the rider experience should be at the forefront of conversations around public transit, as well discussing the implementation of security measures like surveillance cameras and the presence of transit police for increased rider safety.
Connecting with communities around these issues can also provide ways to increase community involvement and trust in public transit options. Granicus’ Transit Public Safety Guide offers some ways to build a culture of safety by actively incorporating feedback opportunities into the rider journey.
- Prioritize feedback channels: Make it easy for riders to report safety concerns through multiple, readily available channels. These might include dedicated websites, two-way text options, or support hotlines. Prioritize channels based on user preference feedback and usage data analysis.
- Visible response mechanisms: Acknowledge reported concerns promptly and provide riders with estimated timelines for action. When implementing safety measures based on feedback (e.g., increased security presence, improved lighting), clearly communicate these changes to riders through in-station displays, social media updates, and push notifications.
- Data-driven decisions: Analyze user feedback alongside crime data to pinpoint high priority areas. This allows for targeted security investments, ensuring resources are directed toward areas where they will have the most significant impact based on user input. By prioritizing user feedback and making response mechanisms visible, public transit agencies create a feedback loop that fosters trust and empowers riders. Visible security measures become a tangible result of rider engagement, creating a safer and more comfortable environment for everyone.
Bringing iterative change to safety in public transit is more a journey than a destination. Regularly monitoring crime data and safety incidents allows agencies to proactively identify emerging trends and adapt strategies. Resource allocation becomes more efficient by focusing on areas with the most significant safety concerns.
Embracing and expanding tools for innovation
Innovation in public transit can be seen as iterative, as well. In a society where technology seems focused on “disrupting” for profit, public transit might be seen as outdated or unable to compete with newer transportation solutions. Rather than set themselves as competitors to such services as Uber and Lyft, some public transit agencies have found ways to collaborate with these services to benefit their larger communities.
Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA), for example, developed a service model to address community needs for assisting low-income residents getting to and from work when regular bus service is not available. In partnership with other mobility providers — Uber, Lyft, a local taxi company, and a wheelchair transportation provider — the program provides fully subsidized, on-demand, door-to-door service to or from a place of work within the county limits during nighttime hours, with an average response time of 5-7 minutes.
The program showed a 96% positive evaluation of the service, with respondents stating it helped provide access to new job opportunities or work shifts (57%), a safer nighttime travel option (23%), and more personal and family time (14%).
Leamington, Ontario, created an on-demand transit program allowing residents to book a trip through an app or website, or by calling the customer service office, with payments made on the vehicle or through the app. The new transit buses also offered Wi-Fi for users, charging ports for devices at every seat, and are fully accessible for all riders.
Rather than create an app, the municipality turned to its engagement portal, Let’s Talk Leamington, to conduct surveys and interact with residents. This open space for riders to provide input into the new offering helped create efficiencies in the system and an increase in ridership of more than 275% in its first year compared to the previous fixed route system.
Real-time route information and on-demand pick-up are just two of the innovations that continue to make public transit use more convenient while expanding the number of riders for a system. Here, again, the importance of understanding the needs of the ridership is critical to making efficient plans for innovation that will enhance the rider experience and achieve their goals of reliability and reduced travel times.
Using community engagement software, such as EngagementHQ, many organizations can close feedback loops and better serve their residents. In 2022, 48% of all EngagementHQ users leveraged embeddable tools to deliver dialogue across web properties and across the customer journey. For PSTA, Leamington, and similar organizations, these tools help integrate community feedback (or user research) into service delivery and design.
Affordability and accessibility: Critical components of public transit
As the earlier statistics from APTA show, public transit has a significant impact on connecting communities with work and other opportunities that have positive impacts on economic growth. Yet, it’s important for public transit organizations to continue to put a strong emphasis on making their services accessible and affordable for their riders.
The promise of increased accessibility that comes with public transit is not a finite one, as it continues to be impacted by expanding communities, often outpacing the growth of transit routes that might otherwise dissuade potential riders from using the system. Understanding, communicating, and promoting upgraded transit infrastructure can help better connect with elderly passengers, those in the community with disabilities, and parents dealing with strollers, all of whom might have mobility issues.
Creating “First and Last Mile” solutions can also help address the accessibility issues created while available routes catch up with geographic growth. Options such as bike-sharing programs, scooters, and better pedestrian pathways can help riders reach transit stops more easily.
Flexibility is also key when addressing affordability issues in the community. Discussing the benefits of various fare options, such as monthly passes, discounted rates for low-income riders, and free transfers provides a way to address these issues. Subsidies and incentives from local governments can also help make public transit more affordable.
As with the other pillars of public transit engagement strategy, strong communication and feedback from the community are crucial to success, as well as transparent connections with board policymaking.
Located in San Francisco’s East Bay, the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District leveraged the online public meetings required during the COVID pandemic into their new standard, not only increasing the audience of public participants through online public meeting tools, but also creating a transparency mindset that has seen increased public engagement with board meetings in the years since implementation.
Fulfilling the promise of public transit
Public transit has always been and will continue to be a primary lifeline that connects communities both rural and urban to their daily needs. Innovating the means of serving the public with reliable, safe, and efficient transportation at an affordable price will remain a steadfast part of every community.
Public transit agencies can best prepare to meet any challenges they might face by creating a mindset of engagement, communication, and transparency.
Contact us and discover the tools that can help public transit organizations best fulfill their mission in today’s technological landscape.
