Deslauriers – MARKETING CONVENTIONAL TRANSIT 1978

Description

A 1978 study surveyed 41 of Ontario’s 45 urban transit systems to assess soft marketing (information, advertising, promotion) and evaluate transit route guides. Managers invest very little—about 0.5% of operating budgets—in marketing, largely because they doubt marketing can raise ridership and revenue enough to cover costs. Nevertheless, many use low-cost tactics (merchant promotions, school visits, system themes, provincial ads, on-bus materials) to maintain community awareness. Route guides (maps, timetables, schedules) were rated the most important soft marketing tool, especially for attracting new residents; managers view guides as both information sources and advertisements. The study recommends guides include clear “how-to” instructions, street detail and local points of interest, and improved timetable readability—current testing showed only 9% of respondents could correctly use timetable info. Finally, the paper argues cost/revenue evaluation is incomplete: marketing should be judged from business, ecological and social perspectives, which yield different criteria and might justify greater marketing emphasis.