Customer- Based Planning

Even the best marketing cannot sell a service that doesn’t meet customer needs. Both service and marketing strategies must be based on a thorough understanding of your community, your transit system and your potential customer.

Customer-Based Planning, Market Research and Community Outreach are intrinsic to our work. To see our experience in these areas, click here and select the appropriate category.

Triad for Building Ridership

Transit Marketing’s approach to building transit ridership is to combine insightful research, community-based service planning and targeted marketing with a focus on the customer. It is only when transit service effectively meets the needs of the target consumer and marketing accurately addresses their concerns and motivations that ridership will be maximized.

Knowing Your Community and Customer

Our planning approach begins with understanding your operating environment, transit’s role in your community and the various customer segments you serve. This understanding is built through customized market research designed for a specific community.

Our approach generally includes a mix of:

• Quantitative research, such as passenger surveys, community surveys and surveys of key target populations.
• Qualitative research and outreach, such as focus groups, stakeholder interviews and a comprehensive customer experience review.
• Demographic analysis based on Census and American Community Survey data.
• Utilization data, such as boarding/alighting counts, demand response trip logs and fare/transfer analysis.

Community-Based Service Planning

Once we understand the needs and travel patterns of current and potential riders, we can assess the extent to which the existing system meets those needs and make pragmatic, carefully considered recommendations for enhancing the service provided. Our team is highly experience with fixed route, demand response and mobility management services, hence we consider all strategies that will most effectively and cost efficiently meet the customers’ needs.

Targeted Marketing

Even the best service will not attain maximum ridership if it is a “well kept secret.” Once a system’s services are in line with the needs of its current and potential customers, marketing plays a critical role in building visibility, understanding and ridership. Transit Marketing develops marketing plans that begin with the basics of effective branding and passenger information and then go on to address building community partnerships to market to key target segments and using cost-effective public relations and promotional efforts to reach the broad community.