America has seven “transportation types,” according to a new study by TransitCenter, and these seven common attitudes should inspire more creativity for communicators and marketers aiming to help increase ridership on public transportation.
You can see the seven different types in the chart to the right.
Two types are not worth focusing on at all. “Devoted drivers” make up 20 percent of the 12,000 people surveyed in Who’s On Board: The 2014 Mobility Attitudes Survey. They are happy with their suburban, car-dependent lifestyles. And “sons and daughters of suburbia” (12 percent) will stay in the car-centric suburbs, like their parents, at all costs.
The good news: That leaves 68 percent of Americans still willing to listen to messages about how public transportation can make their lives better.
Here are the messages Mobility Lab views, based on the report’s findings, as being potentially influential to each of the four transportation types that communicators and marketers – and transportation agencies, planning experts, and others, for that matter – should use.
Public transportation saves time
“Career-driven commuters” are people whose housing and transportation decisions center on getting to and from work as quickly and conveniently as possible. This group, the largest of all types at 22 percent of Americans, is not likely to have grown up with transit options but probably lives in large cities where the job opportunities are greatest. Transit just might happen to work for them, even if they are not all that willing to try new things in generally or to be influenced by friends about the value of transit.
Click here for all our commentary on TransitCenter’s report.
For this group to switch from using their cars, transit must be faster and easier. And the travel time will be the major motivating factor in getting them to use it.
Walkable, vibrant lifestyles
“Bohemian Boomers” are a group worth focusing on because they are retiring and interested in driving less and being in walkable, dense, mixed-use settings.
This group, which is 19 percent of the population, may be ripe for using more transit because about a third are infrequent users who could become more frequent users. Being about to retire, they may be considering relocating to denser places that have transit options.
The allure of the city
The 16 percent “willing and waiting” group grew up in suburbia but is dabbling in an urban lifestyle. They love transit, but are often disappointed by it and still find themselves relying on the convenience of their cars.
This group’s true preference for transit just isn’t being catered to. But if walkable communities and reliable public transportation are created, they will be there. Real-estate and planning professionals are banking their developments and their careers on this group.
TransitCenter’s report notes that this may be the most important group for the messages of transit advocates.
Transit is affordable and saves money
“Metro moms and dads” make up 8 percent of the population. They don’t necessarily have cars because of their low income. They will stay in the city, just like how the “sons and daughters of suburbia” will remain in the suburbs. This group is ethnically diverse, lives in urban areas, and is the group most likely to make less than $50,000 in annual household income.
Transit is hip and trendy
This group is 3 percent of the population and loves their phones more than their cars. Many of them have young children and make up some of that demographic we so famously hear about as being late to bother getting their driver’s licenses. This groups loves transit, but the challenge will lie in keeping them attracted to it as they age.
The public-transportation community certainly needs to keep being creative with its messages to reinvent itself as an option more and more people are attracted to. What are the most effective ways you can think of to use these messages?
Photo by Ed Yourdon