How the marketing can participate in a durable improvement of traffic andincomes in urban public transportation: An example of the RATP (Paris, France).

Urban public transport is an activity where the competition is bigger than supposed. In Ile de France region, only 21 % of the users of the TPU ( urban public transports) are 'captives' and about 70 % of the customers are also users of the motor car. The aim is to influence durably their modal choice. Marketing becomes more important as demand, the behavior of the users, is taken into account. But there are many who doubt its impact, such that faith in 'mechanistic behaviors' is considerable. In Ile de France region, under the aegis of the Public Transport Authority (STIF) the Public transport providers and more particularly the RATP implemented(operated) marketing programs which simultaneously favour increase in the traffic, the market share, but also the receipts. Two of these programs ("Imagine'r" for the schooled young people and "Integrale" intended for commuters) have convincing results. The constituent principles are the development of customer loyalty and the increase of the value of the subscription to public transports. The choice of the development of customer loyalty rests on the fact that more than three quarters of the population are customers and that the part of the regular users is important. Every year, approximately two thirds of the customers revisit their modal choice and arbitrate regularly between collective transport and particular vehicle. It is there that the development of customer loyalty is important for stabilizing this part of clientele and giving more visibility to the sales incomes. The increase of the value consists in 'loading" with additional profits the annual subscription which supports the loyalty program so that, in front of these profits, the customer agrees to spend a little more. Since 1999, the members in these programs increased from 500000 to 1300000. The average income by customer increased enough to loosen a 'net profit' shared between the companies and the PTA, including by integrating the marketing costs. For the program "Imagine'r" which has more than 720000 young people, there was an increase on both patronage and market share of public transports (10%). The complete presentation will detail mechanisms used in both programs and will present the detailed calculated results, as well as the method used to calculate the return on investment. The statement will also show how such a policy allowed to weaken in the RATP the decline of traffic connected to the terrorist attacks of September, 2001. Since 1998, what happened in the Ile de France region demonstrates that marketing programs based on customer loyalty can durably improve traffic and incomes. For the covering abstract please see ITRD E135207.