Monterey-Salinas Transit RealTime Comprehensive Educational Campaign

Target Audience: Monterey-Salinas Transit introduced MST RealTime to our community throughout 2017 and 2018 in a comprehensive marketing and promotional campaign targeted to our existing, first-time, and future passengers. Using text, phone, Transit app, or maps, riders can receive up-to-the-minute real-time information about their next bus. We reached our target audience through print media, video, social media, radio, and in person. RealTime is prominently displayed on our home page with more comprehensive information on a secondary page at: https://mst.org/riders-guide/realtime/. We also gave away technology-related promotional items including ear buds and cell phone chargers.

Strategy Objective:Our strategy with the technology as well as the marketing campaign was to reach all of our riders, whether young or old, tech savvy or not. We wanted to make sure that our passengers were comfortable with the tools, no matter their preferred technology. We had several objectives when we launched MST RealTime to our passengers and the community: a. Improve passenger convenience. b. Meet passenger expectations. c. Reduce demand for bus arrival information from customer service. d. Improve the passenger experience by reducing the perception of waiting at the bus stop. e. Attract ridership.

Situation Challenge: Over many years, MST invested in the technology infrastructure to make real-time bus arrival information available to our customers. When the technology was tested and implemented in July 2017, we wanted to show our existing and future riders how it worked. This effort was also a part of the MST Board of Director's Strategic Plan. We installed information at our 1,317 bus stops so that riders could use MST RealTime whenever and wherever they needed bus arrival information. Instant bus arrival information is also something our passengers and the community expect.

Results Impact: We track our results through RealTime usage by text, app, and phone. The number of text messages has increased 157% between August 2017 and September 2018. The number of app users has increased by 64% over the same time period. Between 20% and 30% of phone calls are being transferred to RealTime automated information. In our 2018 passenger survey, 55% of respondents reported that they have used MST RealTime to get bus information. Our Facebook fan base has grown 18% since the launch of RealTime. Our Twitter followers have increased by 11% over the same time period. Overall, MST ridership has also increased between 2017 and 2018 by 2.3%, due in part to this RealTime outreach effort, free fares on bus lines in Salinas, and our strong partnerships.

Why Submit: The MST mission is "advocating and delivering quality public transportation as leader within our community and industry". We are proud of our collective accomplishment and would like to share our successes with others within the industry so that public transportation across the nation is successful. We hope that other transit agencies ' especially those in small urban and rural areas ' might be inspired by the RealTime campaign and benefit from our success. We created a comprehensive marketing campaign which was very successful in reaching our target audience, our riders and future riders. We learned from other agencies and timed the campaign for maximum reach. In comparing our objectives to our results, we have been very successful.