Traditionally, public transportation agencies have marketed directly to riders and potential riders. In recent years, transit agencies, and even regional planning agencies, have directed more of their marketing efforts toward businesses to counteract declining market share. Not necessarily a natural outgrowth of their traditional marketing efforts, these agencies have often blended marketing, communications, and service development in order to establish fledgling-business marketing techniques. Employer subsidy programs, guaranteed rides home, and nontraditional or customized transit services have been outgrowths of these efforts. Sales, direct-to-business marketing, product development, and marketing management are new to transit agencies, although private-sector businesses have extensive experience in these areas. There is a substantial body of private-sector marketing knowledge that is transferable to the public sector. There is a need to identify the most effective and broadly applicable business-to-business marketing techniques that public transportation agencies can use.

This research identifies direct-to-business marketing methods appropriate for use in the public transit industry. The guidebook can be used by transit professionals for product development, sales, and business development. This research may assist transit properties in selling their products to new markets.

Status: The final report has been published as TCRP Report 51, "A Guidebook for Marketing Transit Services to Business." Double-click on the file below to access the report. (A free copy of the Adobe Acrobat Reader is available at https://www.adobe.com.) PLEASE NOTE: Because of the very large size of these files, it may take a long time--possibly more than 1 hour collectively--to download. We regret the inconvenience.

The contractor's case studies have been published as TCRP Web Document 8.