Monterey-Salinas Transit Ride the 40s on Us

Target Audience: Monterey-Salinas Transit introduced 'Ride the 40s on Us' to our passengers and residents in September 2017 and the campaign will continue through August 2019. The Salinas, California, based lines which operate on weekends and holidays were the target of the promotion. Anyone seeking a ride on one of the 40s lines may board for free. Additionally, complementary ADA paratransit is free on weekends and holidays in Salinas. Although our target audience was initially defined by our funding source, the residents in the entire area of Salinas benefit from this promotional effort.

Strategy Objective:Our strategy of the 'Ride the 40s on Us' campaign was to reach the community in the most effective way. Our target audience listens to local radio stations so we produced a radio ad in English and Spanish to get the word out. Our objective was to attract as many new riders as possible. We accomplished this with a very limited budget and a lot of public outreach in the community.

Situation Challenge: Like many other public transit agencies across the nation, MST is always looking for creative and innovative ways to increase ridership. When we were informed about our formula funding amount under the newly created California Climate Investment Grants under the Cap and Trade program, we immediately thought about investing in Salinas. The program requires that the funding be spent in areas which benefit local disadvantaged communities, the largest of which is in Salinas. We used our formula funding to pay for the lost fares offered by the 'Free 40s'.

Results Impact: We were able to increase ridership on weekends and holidays on the Salinas lines by 80%. In an average month prior to the Free 40s, we saw ridership on the targeted lines average 13,720 passengers on weekends and holidays. After the free fares were introduced, average weekend and holiday ridership grew to 24,696 passengers. The ridership increase was so significant that it affected our overall systemwide ridership as reported on a monthly basis to our Board of Directors. Complementing free fares on the fixed-route service, we began offering free ADA paratransit service for all of Salinas trips on weekends and holidays. The ridership increase on the ADA paratransit service has been very successful as well. We estimate a 35% increase in ridership on the ADA paratransit service.

Why Submit: The MST mission is "advocating and delivering quality public transportation as leader within our community and industry". One of our strategic goals is to "provide quality transportation'" This Free 40s campaign supports our mission and our strategic goals. Additionally, while our shoestring budget of $10,000 limited our reach, we have been very successful with this effort to increase ridership.