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Online methods foreffective marketing andeasy-to-use transit information

7 October 2011Community Transportation Association of IdahoAaron Antrim | Trillium Solutions, Inc.

Our customers are online.

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project,http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Internet_and_Daily_Life.pdf

•73% of all Americans are internet users

•63% of of people in rural areas•53% of < $30k/year income households

•71% of 50-64 year olds•88% of 18-29 year olds

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project,(http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Internet_and_Daily_Life.pdf)

The third most common internet activity for Americans is to “search for a map or driving directions,” (87%) behind only email and using search engines.

• Be visible• Simplify• Be accessible• Empower customers• Be everywhere• Measure success

Here is how:

Be visible.

Have you Googled your agency?

Other terms?

To improve position in search results:1. Add relevant keywords to

your website2. Ask other agencies and

websites to link to your website

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Include an easy-to-remember web-address to include on vehicles, schedules, signs, press releases, and outgoing off-hours voicemail greeting

Which is your URL?

www.ci.beaumont.ca.us/index.aspx?nid=90or

www.eurekatransit.org?

Cost for domain name registration:$10/year at Godaddy.com

Simplify.

Timetables Route maps System map Trip planner Online pass sales Travel reservations

Best practices for online timetables

• Link to route map from timetable page

• Downloadable PDF version

• How to use timetables guide

Example from trimet.org

Navigation and information features

TimeTable(Publisher:open&source&so+ware&for&producing&web&and&print4ready&6metables&from&GTFS.&&More&at&6metablepublisher.org

Redwoodtransit.org example

Approximate cost to implement:$3,500

Arcata Transit Center

Southbound Hour Northbound

:33 6 am :57

:37 :29* :16 7 am :29

:33 :14 8 am :46 :09

:59 :03 9 am :42 :01

:37 10 am :33 :02

:57 :46 11 am :30

:26 12 am :38 :08

:40 :11 1 pm :46 :21

:36 :17 2 pm :55 :30 :16

:09 3 pm :48

:45 :24 :13 4 pm :38 :11

:19 5 pm :54 :04

:49 :07 6 pm :21

7 pm :00

:10 8 pm :20

:04 9 pm :47

10 pm :28

*Blue highlighted times

indicate the supplemental

(Mon-Thurs) schedule.

See larger map

Change or add a stopChange or add a stop

Choose a different primary stop* Arcata Transit Center

Choose a second stop to display

alongsideNo stop selected

Service schedule: Weekday service

Go!

Printable version of this pageClick any time below to see a complete itinerary of stop locations for that trip

Map data ©2010 Google -

Redwoodtransit.org example

Approximate cost to implement:$3,500

Arcata Transit Center

Southbound Hour Northbound

:33 6 am :57

:37 :29* :16 7 am :29

:33 :14 8 am :46 :09

:59 :03 9 am :42 :01

:37 10 am :33 :02

:57 :46 11 am :30

:26 12 am :38 :08

:40 :11 1 pm :46 :21

:36 :17 2 pm :55 :30 :16

:09 3 pm :48

:45 :24 :13 4 pm :38 :11

:19 5 pm :54 :04

:49 :07 6 pm :21

Printable version of this pageClick any time below to see a complete itinerary of stop locations for that trip

System and route maps

maps.trimet.org

System and route maps

pt.berkeley.edu

deltarides.com• Interactive regional map•Multiple agencies included (12)•Cost for entire website: ~$5,000

mbta.com•Abstracted subway system map• Tabs to choose between map styles

mbta.com• Interactive street map• Tabs to choose between map styles

mbta.com• Interactive street map• Tabs to choose between map styles

Mountain Rides map (Ketchum, ID)•Cost: $3,600• Includes images of stops• Includes bike route layer

Trip planner & interactive map•Cost: $300-$2,000/month

The online customer experience

Pre-trip

Pass sales

The online customer experience

Pre-trip

Trip reservations

deltarides.com

Be accessible.

Timetables Route maps System map Trip planner Online pass sales Travel reservations

Best practices for online timetables

HTML timetables are browser-viewable, search engine friendly, accessible for users who are sight-impaired. Avoid PDFs and images.

Horizonal orientation helps make information accessible to users who are sight-impaired.

Example from trimet.org

Accessibility

What makes an accessible website? Explaining this will require some technical descriptions. If you don’t understand any of the technical parts, just pass over them, as they are not necessary to understanding many of the more important non-technical parts. The best way to begin explaining web-accessibility is to describe what an accessible website is not.

Accessible websites do not include images, especially images for navigation, without including hidden descriptive text. Consider an image icon on a website that a user clicks to navigate to another page. Since it is not text, text-to-speech synthesizer software cannot read what this image represents. Unless the web-designer includes an invisible alternative text description of the image for sight-impaired users, they will have no idea what it is. Alternate text is also helpful for search engine indexing and users with slow connections.

An especially poor practice I’ve seen on transit websites is offering transit timetables as images instead of raw text. While the timetable may appear as text to a sighted user, it is actually transmitted and displayed in the web-browser as an image file. You can tell this because individual bits of text cannot be selected and cut-and-pasted into a word processor, and the text-size does not change when with the browser’s text-size adjustment features. These transit time-table images are essentially inaccessible to sight-impaired users, as it is not feasible to provide useful alternative text for such lengthy and highly-structured information

Providing only PDF files of schedule files can be fraught with some of the same problems. PDF files, while generally more screen-reader friendly than images, do not provide the same quality of access as a well-designed webpage if they are not “tagged” with special invisible cues, and most are not.

Accessible vs. inaccessible: The original Redwood Transit System website (top), used a layout approach called frames which hindered accessibility and search engine indexing. The new www.redwoodtransit.org (below) is visually-pleasing, accessible for everyone, and search-engine friendly.

Page 2

Article: “Creating accessible transit websites”

Best and worst practices

Online athttp://tinyurl.com/accessible-website

Sendero GPS:GTFS data can be used to create transit point of interest libraries for sight-impaired people to use with talking GPS

Empower customers.

Real-time arrival estimates

PDX Bus: iPhone app for Portland/TriMet

Real-time arrival estimates

Nextbus is one vendor for real-time arrival systems

The online customer experience

En-route

Real-time arrival estimates

Goose Networks provides interface to view vehicle status and locations.

Provides mechanisms for text and email alerts.

The online customer experience

En-route

Real-time arrival estimates

Other vendors:•Avail•Mentor•Avego• init•Translōc

Cost: Between $1,000 and $5,000 per vehicle. Maintenance costs vary.

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GTFS-realtimehttp://code.google.com/transit/realtime/

Be everywhere.

Everywhere&there&is&travel&informa6on,&transit&is&an&op6on

Google Transit

Google Transit is available on most “smart phones”

Twitter status messages:• “I’m thinking of

catching my 1st ever bus since iPhone 2.2 got released! It even tells you the bus timetable!” @timjennion• Took a bus for the first

time in over a year. The new public transport option in maps on the iPhone is brilliant!” @helloBos

Planners advocate integrating transit into the streetscape.

When does my train arrive?

(trimet.org & 5 iPhone apps) Where’s a good

restaurant?(yelp.com & iPhone app)

What time does the library close?

(Google)

Open data makes transit information more ubiquitous.

Open data enables innovation.

We’re small and we can’t provide every

customized solution people ask for….

making the data available is something that

we’re very familiar with so that developers

can develop the tools themselves. It’s like

having an army of developers available to us.

— Tim McHugh, CTO, Trimet[full interview at tinyurl.com/trimet-cto]

The Google Transit Feed Specification, as a lightweight data standard for transit geographic and schedule data, has quickly become an increasingly ubiquitous format.

And you don’t have to be Google to use it.

PDXBus: A free iPhone application for arrivals and trip planning.

citygoround.org

Directory of third-party transit applications and agencies that provide open data.

walkscore.com: Transit time map

Transit score on walkscore.com

estately.com

Real estate search site lets users search by proximity to transit. Estately obtains transit info from public Google Transit Feed Spec data.

Goose Networks

Multi-modal trip planning application uses GTFS

Show all relevant options – including public transit, private employer shuttles, carpool, vanpool, biking, walking – through a single map

Show interagency transfers

Mul64Modal&PlanningPatagonia&4&Ventura

Show&all&relevant&op6ons;&7&carpool,&3&transit&

Inter4service&TransfersGenentech&–&South&San&Francisco

Transfer&from&BART&to&private&employer&shuQle

transitandtrails.org

Connects hiking trail and campground data with transit (with links to Google Transit).

Make friends.

Example:Mountain Line,Missoula, MT

Example: SF BART

Melissa Jordan on SF BART’s Twitter feed:

“I think it humanizes the brand. That comes up in quite a bit in the feedback we get from customers, that they do feel a more personal connection when they can communicate with you in real time, and know that you’re listening and answering their questions. So it’s helped to align with the strategic brand initiative that we have of making BART more approachable, friendly, modern, and dynamic.”

(http://tinyurl.com/sfbart-interview)

Melissa Jordan on how NOT to use Twitter:

“The majority of them [transit agencies on Twitter], if you look at their follower versus following, are not really following people back. They’re just pushing information out, and I think that is not the best use of the medium, which is multi-directional. It needs to be about conversations.”

(http://tinyurl.com/sfbart-interview)

northcoastjournal.com

Online event calendar has two clicks to transit directions for all events, using Google Transit.

northcoastjournal.com

Online event calendar has two clicks to transit directions for all events, using Google Transit.

Inexpensive, easy way to stay in touch with riders and community

Many low-cost or free options:

• Google Groups (free)

• Constant Contact (~$10/1,000 messages)

• Mailchimp (free under 5,000 subscribers)

• Newsberry

Email newsletters and alerts

Measure success.

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Google Analytics is a free tool for tracking visitorship to your website.

More information at www.google.com/analytics

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Questions to ask:

• Who visits the website? Is it a significant portion of customers?

• How do they find the website?• What partners refer the most

visitors?• What content do they use most?• What (mobile) devices do customers

use?

Putting the pieces together

Examples:Golden Empire Transit (Bakersfield, California)

San Francisco Bay Area Rapid TransitTriMet (Portland, Oregon)

Mountain Rides (Sun Valley area, Idaho)Redwood Transit (Humboldt County, California)

Trinity Transit (Trinity County, California)

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In review…

• Be visible• Simplify• Be accessible• Empower customers• Be everywhere• Measure success

Use online information to:

Ques6ons?

Aaron AntrimTrillium Solutions, Inc.Phone: (707) 633-4464aaron@trilliumtransit.comTwitter: @aaronantrimBlog: www.trilliumtransit.com/blog

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