Convincing people in smaller to mid-sized markets to utilize public transportation takes a back seat to showing people that public transportation is a vital part of their community as a whole.

Third-party research combined with our nearly 25 years of communicating on behalf of a transit authority consistently proves that.

In the report titled “Understanding How to Motivate Communities to Support and Ride Public Transportation,” the Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) did a study that revealed most respondents could define a role for transit in their communities.

Some respondents were better able to envision the reverse—how would their communities fare without transit? Generally, people acknowledged that transit provided mobility, particularly for individuals without personal transportation. Without transit, some people would have trouble getting to work or to the grocery store.

People who don’t ride, or ride infrequently, recognized intellectually that transit played a role in their community. But given the small part that transit played in their daily lives, they did not offer that opinion with real vigor, according to the TCRP report, sponsored by the Federal Transit Administration in 2008.

Enhancing that vigor among non-riders is the role of marketing and public relations. Just because most people have the means and ability to drive themselves, doesn’t mean ALL will or do. And, it’s vital to a fully-functioning society to provide that means to all who choose to ride to save money, go green or because they are unable to drive for a variety of reasons and need to ride.

That said, ridership messages have their place and have proven to be successful in increasing usage numbers under specific circumstances. Campaigns offering alternatives to skyrocketing gas prices, convenient lunch-time shuttles, easy-to-use rides to the local sports stadium or arena…these are the times you communicate to the infrequent transit rider to remind them of the greater value transit brings to their community.