Starting in mid September, the WTA will survey 2000 ferry riders to learn more about their attitudes and preferences. A market research firm will distribute and collect the on-board surveys, which will cover all ferry routes in the Bay.

"Ferry riders can influence what the future system will look like by taking time to answer this important survey," said Steve Castleberry, Manager, Systems Planning, at WTA. "The data collected will help the WTA plan routes, frequency of service, bus/rail connections, parking, terminals, fares and other parts of the ferry system," added Castleberry.

The WTA is using an innovative market-based research approach to understand better why people ride ferries and what the WTA could do to attract more riders. This will be one of the first times that such a customer driven approach will be used to plan a public transit ferry system.

Market research is typically the first step used by businesses to develop new products or services. But in public transit, ridership surveys tend to focus on limited factors like travel time and cost. The WTA’s surveys will ask riders about factors that influence their travel choices such as reliability, flexibility and overall personal experience.

The innovative approach is modeled after customer research done for the private sector such as the airline industry. "To break into the competitive airline business, Southwest Airlines did exhaustive market research to find out about the preferences of potential customers. Their customer niche turned out to be couch potatoes who didn’t like to travel! Southwest successfully devised a product that would lure couch potatoes out of their homes and on to the planes," said Maren Outwater, Cambridge Systematics, the consulting firm hired by the WTA to do these studies

"We are bringing a Southwest Airlines style of market research to the world of public transit," explained Outwater. "If you design a system or product differently, you can break into markets that people think are tapped out. For ferries, this market-based research can help the WTA design a transit system that will get people out of their cars and on to ferries," added Outwater.

Data from the on-board surveys will be augmented with information collected from a telephone survey of 750 households in the Bay Area. These surveys will test people’s choice of commute modes and travel attitudes and provide important demographic information. The market-based information from both surveys will greatly enhance information collected by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in their ridership model.

Cambridge Systematics, Inc. is an internationally recognized consulting firm providing analytic, systematic, and interdisciplinary solutions to clients. The firm has offices all over the country, including Oakland.

The WTA is a multi-county, regional planning agency charged by the California Legislature with planning the next fifteen years of ferry expansion in San Francisco Bay. The WTA’s draft plan is due to the California Legislature in December 2003. The agency is required to do environmental and technical studies. For more information, questions or suggestions: see www.watertransit.org.