Here is the thing that bothers me the most probably because it is my business. Our local transit agencies cannot seem to figure out how to advertise them selves. Instead they depend on benevolence that the consumers will somehow seek them out and figure out how to use their system.
That thought process has got to change. You do not win users out of benevolence. You win riders out of improving their transportation efficiency. You have to beat the competition.
You need to set your size hire and serve all socio-economic group. You need to give Joe middle management a better way to get to his cubicle and back.
Connecting all the various cities in the county is the VISTA bus. VISTA stands for the Ventura Intercity Service Transit Agency. You have to a whole lot better shorten the VISTA but it does not scream to the public what the service is.
When companies failed to do that, they have to spend millions of dollars in advertising to make the public relate their name to the service they provide. Some thought was put into the VISTA bus. It does not look like your average city bus instead it is a couch style with much more comfortable seating for the longer trips you might expect to take in VISTA. VISTA buses have a nice stylized paint job but other than the name VISTA, their web site and their telephone number on the back of the bus, you would have no idea that this is a public bus as opposed to maybe a casino bus or a tourist bus. What do those buses do?
It is kind of like, I personally never knew what they are for. I see people sitting out there waiting for but I have the impression that it was a government bus. It was not really a bus that I would be able to go on but I did not recognize it as a regular bus.
Let us take another bus owned by the county. There is little doubt who owns this bus nor who should be probably riding on it. You do not have to ride mass transit long to realize that connections or transfers is where the system fail. Each advantage you might gain by shooting across the traffic snarl is lost waiting for the next bus. And unfortunately, that is where the VISTA system fails.
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