SM Big Blue Bus "How to Ride" Educational and Promotional Video

Target Audience: The Big Blue Bus's (BBB) "How to Ride" video is intended for current and prospective bus transit riders of all demographics, and serves an entertaining and educational tool for demonstrating the primary steps to ride the bus safely and responsibly. The following explains how each audience is addressed in the video: - Attract and engage prospective riders about how to ride the bus through a short, fun, and educational video; - Introduce new riders to basic rules and tips to easily and safely ride the bus; and - Remind existing riders of bus-riding etiquette.

Strategy Objective:BBB aimed to develop a short, high-quality educational video for current and prospective customers that is: - Engaging: The video is easy to understand with clear messaging, uses graphics and other visual aids to help illustrate key messages, and includes footage of real riders. - Concise: The video is approximately two minutes in length, and includes all of the key fundamentals of bus riding. - Entertaining: The video incorporates a visually appealing design and an upbeat tone. - Informative: The video covers all of the steps (i.e. service area, hours of operations, trip planning, fare payment, boarding, requesting a stop, and disembarking) necessary for an easy, safe, and pleasant experience on board BBB.

Situation Challenge: Two primary challenges prompted the creation of the video: 1) Similar to most transit agencies, BBB experienced a significant decrease in ridership over the last several years. To help reduce the perceived barriers associated with riding transit, and promote ridership in the region, BBB developed a video intended to introduce (or re-introduce) riders to transit. 2) Existing riders described instances of being passed up, denied exit through the front door, missing stops, and customers unwilling to offer designated seats to those who need them. Additionally, we received many inquiries regarding fare, service area, and hours. Feedback from our drivers also indicated that customer policies were being disregarded. Therefore, it was an opportune time to reinforce policies with existing riders.

Results Impact: BBB debuted the video in late July 2018, and its impact can be observed through improved customer behavior and greater awareness about how to ride the bus. The video provides useful information for a diverse range of audiences in an engaging format. In fact, the video frequently serves as an educational tool for BBB's community outreach efforts (e.g. workshops, lunch and learns, stakeholder meetings, etc.), and has been shared with both customers and local partners (schools, neighborhood groups, business improvement districts, etc.), via BBB-owned digital marketing channels.

Why Submit: Communication tools (such as the "How to Ride" video) that demonstrate the ease of riding transit are increasingly important, as agencies work to reclaim and attract riders. The video clearly and concisely demonstrates how to ride bus transit, and has already proven a useful tool for a variety of applications, which concentrate on reducing perceived barriers to transit, and promoting transit ridership. Further, "How to Ride" is the BBB's first professionally produced video, dedicated entirely to customer education. BBB will look to expand its use of videos as a communication medium to reach key audiences, especially given the high adoption of both social and visual media, as a preferred means of engagement. It is important that BBB continue to develop new and innovative strategies.