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68 The goal of this synthesis is to feature information about the motivations and strategies that transit agencies or other local government entities use to increase awareness and understanding of their on-demand services, helping to improve utilization of the services and to meet any specific goals the agency has set in place. Existing literature about on-demand mobility discusses marketing as an important practice and highlights some advertising and outreach efforts agencies did as part of the overall discussion, but there has not been ample focus on marketing and customer educa- tion despite its named importance and implicit connection to the success of new service pilots or programs. Even as service/technology partners often provide tools or staffing to help with these efforts, there is a lack of understanding in the transit industry about the effectiveness of various marketing and education efforts as well as how to measure the impacts from efforts deployed. The study tasks for this report looked at currently published information on marketing and customer education concerning on-demand mobility and documented examples associated with on-demand transit service pilots or programs and learned more about efforts at transit agencies or local government entities through follow-up study. The resulting findings highlight practices and tools for transit agencies and partners to consider incorporating into their own marketing and customer education efforts for upcoming or existing on-demand transit services. This chapter summarizes information across the report about key findings, barriers and chal- lenges, and notable practices in customer education and awareness of on-demand services. The chapter concludes with a summary of continued gaps in understanding and further research needs in transit marketing and engagement. Key Findings Internal Processes and Planning ⢠Agencies tend to use many of the same factors for developing marketing strategies and defining specific customer populations for their on-demand services, including the service area location, transit agency goals, points of interest in the service area, community input, and service radius. ⢠Branding of on-demand services or subsidy programs is often framed as a part of the transit service portfolio or as a premium service to distinguish the service from other existing transit options. Roles and Responsibilities ⢠Service/technology partners often play a role in customer awareness and education, depending on agency preferences as well as the capabilities of the company. These partners can provide templates for marketing materials, send communications/push messages through their existing C H A P T E R 5 Conclusions
Conclusions 69  media channels, and provide in-person customer engagement (typically around the launch period of the service). ⢠Contractual agreements with service/technology partners sometimes have stipulations for marketing and customer engagement activities, but most are not specific in terms of when and how those activities will take place. ⢠Local stakeholder partners can also play a role in customer education and awareness efforts through teaching their communities about the service and disseminating marketing materials. These partner relationships tend to be informal rather than through structured agreements. Types of Marketing and Customer Education ⢠Enhanced participation through technology or incentives is less common in on-demand transit services, typically limited to collecting post-trip feedback in the smartphone app or sending push messages. Some services do have incentives/rewards or referral features as part of the digital platform or service design. Feedback and Performance Measurement ⢠Performance measurement of customer education and marketing efforts typically looks at metrics for service ridership, new and recurring customers, complaints and service rating, and online engagement. Barriers and Challenges Internal Processes and Planning ⢠Smaller transit agencies can struggle in balancing growing awareness of an on-demand service with not increasing demand for service beyond available capacity. Roles and Responsibilities ⢠Monitoring the distribution of marketing materials or execution of activities from project partners can be an issue in outreach effectiveness, particularly for partners an agency has only informal relationships with rather than having existing contractual provisions in place. Types of Marketing and Customer Education ⢠Teaching customers who are unfamiliar with on-demand mobility services how to ride and/ or use the smartphone app can be a challenge, particularly for older customers who are not used to service changes. Getting these customers to take the initial ride on the on-demand service is often the biggest barrier. ⢠Attracting new customers who are not already using existing transit services through targeted marketing can have mixed success. Even if the service is available to particular customer groups of interest to the transit agency, traditional communication channels and marketing materials may not be effective in reaching them. Feedback and Performance Measurement ⢠Agencies do not have a strong handle on measuring the benefit of engagement efforts under- taken for the on-demand service; this includes the process of collecting customer feedback and tying that information to specific engagements or marketing campaigns.
70 Customer Education and Awareness of On-Demand Mobility ⢠Rider retention can also be a challenge for some agencies after customers try the new service the first time, meaning agencies need additional understanding of customer issues with using the service for their trips or their comfort level with the technology. Notable Practices and Lessons Learned Internal Processes and Planning ⢠Continued marketing of the new service before the service launch, at the service launch, and as the service continues post-launch helps reach the intended audience rather than forgetting about the service after a single touchpoint. ⢠Project budgets for on-demand services can include line items for marketing so that agencies have the resources available to perform these activities. Roles and Responsibilities ⢠Specifying customer education activities and performance measures related to customer awareness in the contract agreement helps the service/technology provider plan these activities ahead of time and ensure that they are executed. ⢠Meeting with stakeholders before the service launches for input and feedback can help grow community buy-in and adjust the service parameters to meet the mobility needs of potential customers. ⢠Collaborative partnerships to leverage the expertise and resources of partners together while reducing overlapping responsibilities is a great way to increase the robustness of marketing and customer education efforts. Types of Marketing and Customer Education ⢠Demonstrating the benefits of on-demand mobility options to customers through hands-on education or comparative materials (rather than simply announcing the service) can help improve understanding, particularly for customers who are used to their existing transit services. ⢠When possible to do so safely, having staff from the transit agency or other partners on the ground to help educate people on the street about the service and answer their questions is often the most effective customer engagement tool. ⢠Agencies can use existing or establish new relationships with organizations and elected offi- cials in the community to help educate them about the on-demand service, in turn creating word-of-mouth advertising and organizational support to desired customer groups. Feedback and Performance Measurement ⢠Leveraging data available from on-demand services can help with service management and planning activities, as well as some level of marketing performance by looking at service trends. Further Research Needs Internal Processes and Planning ⢠Available information on goals and performance measures of on-demand services typi- cally only considers the service at the beginning of the service launch period, not taking into account changes in the service and associated goals over time. Further research and under- standing about the evolution of marketing and outreach goals over the life of on-demand services is needed for agencies to effectively plan for and evaluate their services.
Conclusions 71  ⢠The agency examples of on-demand services researched in this report did not include AV services. At the time of this report, most existing autonomous transit services are still in testing phases and not providing revenue service for passengers (with some notable exceptions). As AVs become more prevalent and integrated into on-demand transit services, additional research efforts and understanding will be useful to understand customer education efforts and components needed with these services. Roles and Responsibilities ⢠Agency agreements with service/technology providers can often lack language on specific marketing or engagement activities. Templates and guidelines that include this language, as well as pricing models utilized for these agreements, would be helpful for agencies to use in future contracts and RFPs. Types of Marketing and Customer Education Efforts ⢠Ongoing follow-up engagement during the subsequent months after the new service has launched or especially in the period after a service pilot/program has concluded is a less common prac- tice at transit agencies. Research on reasoning and practices for doing this continued engage- ment would be useful to provide agencies with justification for getting additional feedback on on-demand services and understanding what service design features and outreach efforts are needed for subsequent services. ⢠Use of influencers (people who promote brands and products through social media follow- ings) in raising awareness of on-demand transit services is a topic that was unexplored in the existing identified literature on marketing and customer education. Further discussion and examples of transit agencies (and their partners) enlisting the assistance of influences to market the transit services is a potential research topic for further study. Feedback and Performance Measurement ⢠Performance measurement of customer awareness continues to be an area of weakness for transit agencies, particularly in measuring the effectiveness of certain marketing campaigns or customer education efforts. Research and tools on measuring these aspects of the service is needed and would benefit transit agencies of all sizes. ⢠Relatedly, measuring customer acquisition costs for new customer or recurring customers of on-demand services is a little-used practice at many transit agencies. This is possibly due to lack of capacity and/or having the tools and know-how in place. Research on how to measure these costs would help with measuring effectiveness and agency decision making.
