Special Event-MyTARC - Full System Changeover (paper to fare card)

Target Audience: Our immediate target audience was the students at Central High School, who substantially utilize public transit. Our larger audience goal was to use this special event as a catalyst to strike interest in the general public and regional school systems to increase the number of MyTARC cards in the hands of the public before the official launch date.

Strategy Objective:The strategy was to utilize our MyTARC Mobile Bus to attend Central High School during their lunch break to increase the awareness of the public to the new fare card system, by providing the first public fare cards to the students at one of our most reliant schools. The larger strategy was the hope that this interest would "catch fire" and we would line up additional schools and organization more readily.

Situation Challenge: The main challenge was ensuring our farebox operations. This was essentially an early pilot testing that we hoped would go well, and it went great. Once this farebox was up and running prior to the event date, the coordination with the public school system went quickly and there were no execution issues in getting these first cards out to the public.

Results Impact: The event was a success. The MyTARC mobile bus had no issues on location and the students were able to get their cards, with photo ID, and load fare all under 3 minutes per student. The students left excited understanding how the new system would work, they took handouts for their parents and siblings, and we have since scheduled multiple similar events at additional schools and organizations.

Why Submit: We are submitting our MyTARC Mobile Bus event at Central High School for consideration of this award. The event was a huge success. We partnered with the most transit reliant school in our public system as the first to obtain these cards which garnered us significant interest from other organizations and schools in the region. These students shared the experience through their social media and have been great ambassadors to the effort to inform the community about the changeover to the new fare card system, and away from paper tickets and passes of the past.