APTA International Rail Rodeo & Conference

Target Audience: The target audience included the APTA International Rail Rodeo committee, participants and coaches, RTD Staff, volunteers and sponsors. Our goal was to make the event as welcoming and memorable as possible, while maintaining RTD light rail operations four our customers, meeting the expectations of the committee, and supporting RTD staff. An ancillary 'goal', provided by the Rail Rodeo Committee was, 'to bring back the fun!' The audience included 70 Rodeo Committee member, 37 RTD committee members, 98 participants and coaches, 132 volunteers and 300+ spectators.

Strategy Objective:The objective of the 2018 APTA International Rail Rodeo was to provide an entertaining, fair competitive environment. Founded in 1906, the National Western Stock Show, is the nation's premiere livestock, rodeo and horse show. RTD's creative department designed a Colorado color inspired rodeo logo with a cowboy riding a train that honored our heritage. To counteract cheating and maintain privacy during the operator's competition, over 400' of privacy fence was installed around trains in the yard, from which rodeo pennants hung to create atmosphere. For the maintenance competition, we built a small western 'town' inside our maintenance facility, which provided required 'secrecy' for each event, supported events with access to power, air and lighting and brought the wild west theme to life.

Situation Challenge: The most challenging situation was maintaining maintenance and light rail service operations, while hosting a large scale competition. Doing more with less; as with many other agencies across the country, RTD is experiencing a shortage of head count across all operations in the agency, making day-to-day operations challenging. The added workload involved in planning, designing, building, and implementing the Rail Rodeo needed to be balanced. RTD takes great pride in producing excellent. Maintaining or exceeding our dedicated event team's high expectations for events was a challenge with respect to an event they had never attempted before. The final challenge was the charge from the Rail Rodeo committee to "bring back the fun" to the competition.

Results Impact: The results were greater than we could have imagined. Touted as the best rodeo ever., compliments abounded from participants and coaches, spectators and APTA leadership. The end result was improved relationships amongst our transportation peers, the APTA organization, celebration of the highest level of performance in Rail Operations and Maintenance and we 'brought back the FUN!'.

Why Submit: The 2018 APTA International Rail Rodeo and Conference is the standout submission because of the collaborative inter-departmental planning needed to create and implement a successful competition event. The rodeo needed a face lift and reboot. The level of care and creativity RTD brought to the planning and implementaion, raised the bar. The collaboration of the RTD internal rail operations, facilities, and events teams, demonstrates RTD's commitment to partnerships within the transportation industry. RTD's dedication to expanding relationships increases our stewardship of resources toward the continued expansion of transit use in the Denver Metropolitan Area.