Los Angeles’ Metro is doing something that no transit agency in the country has ever done: it’s marketing its products and services as if it were a private company bent on turning a profit. But for Metro marketing isn’t about increasing the bottom line. It’s about reducing traffic, cleaning the air and making people’s commutes in this auto-clogged city a bit less stressful. (via Transit Agencies Need to Invest in Marketing: A Lesson from Los Angeles | TheCityFix.com)
I would go further than this quote and say that they’re not just marketing, they’re redesigning how people understand the Metro system. They differentiated local and express buses by color, simplified logos, and better organized all the signage associated with the transit system. That’s not just marketing, that’s good transit practice.
