In this paper, the results of an umta demonstration project, theidaho rural/small city cooperative transportation marketing demonstration project, are presented. The purpose of the project was to evaluate the effectiveness of (a) using outside experts to teach local transit managers how to market their services and (b) specific marketing actions to increase ridership and improve the image of public transit in the community. The demonstration was conducted at pocatello, idaho falls, and twin falls, in idaho. The study found that a combination of marketing actions, if properly implemented and targeted, could achieve the desired goals. When these conditions were met in twin falls, an 11 percent ridership increase was achieved over a 6-month period. A radio and television advertising campaign in twin falls that was aimed at improving the image of the transit system stimulated demand for more specific how-to-ride service information and made people more willing to consider riding transit by choice. Publicsupport and awareness of transit increased at both twin falls and idaho falls, whereas support increased for local government involvement in transit at all three systems. The project was also successful in teaching transit managers how to use market research techniques to identify marketing problems facing their organizations and how to develop coherent plans to solve the problems. The project did not sufficiently stress teaching the managers how to implement the specific marketing actions included in their plans, which resulted in ineffective and delayed implementation at two sites. This paper appeared in transportation research record no. 1144, Transit management, marketing, and performance. For covering abstract see IRRD no 818469.
Samenvatting