Marketing and Communication in Public Transport

Rob Mayo: Director, Human Experience Design, cOlab: Auckland, New Zealand

Entirely interactive, this first session aims at introducing the course, collecting the expectations from participants and briefing the group on the course Workshop ‘Challenge’.

Antti Vuorela: Development Manager, Helsinki Regional Transport Authority (HSL): Helsinki, Finland

It’s well-recognised that a good understanding of the people who use public transport services, is essential for planning / designing the kind of product offerings that will meet their expectations. Traditional methods of market research have enabled understanding of PT Service Users to a certain degree but it is digital research in 2026 that provides deeper insights into user attitudes and behaviour. How do you best leverage digital research to add real value to PT service provision?

Using the HSL PT Network in Helsinki Finland as a reference, this session will look at how effective Digital Research:

• Produces better understanding of service user needs
• Defines more effectively, service user behaviour
• Contributes to building real-world passenger journeys

Rob Mayo: Director, Human Experience Design, cOlab: Auckland, New Zealand

To convey an attractive and trustworthy image, every PT Provider needs to ‘position itself well’ with its service users and with the wider general public. As such, marketing supported by a strong brand image, not only retains regular users but constantly attracts new ones and it positively affects overall people’s attitude to PT – it effects behaviour change. A well-marketed and communicated PT Service Brand underpins a modern and vibrant city. What are the functions of an effective PT Brand? How are effective PT Brand Values communicated and how/where do they intersect with marketing activities? What do they mean to overall revenue generation – both farebox and non-farebox?

In this session you’ll be shown how some of the world’s most iconic PT Service Providers use their brand and associated marketing techniques, to maintain ‘Unique Selling Propositions’ (USPs), even during unforeseen service disruptions.

Rikesh Shah: Managing Director – Innovate Today, London, United Kingdom

Online communication is an effective means for PT providers to establish an ongoing dialogue with both service users and city residents / visitors. It helps maintain a good reputation and image for the service provider, enables the provider to better appreciate the experiences and expectations of people and it facilitates further service enhancement.

Using examples from the UK, you’ll learn how effective marketing and communication of public transport service network value, has been achieved using online media to ‘Place-make’ – have public transport users and city residents / visitors feel closer and more connected to their surroundings.

Gerhard Probst: Managing Director, Probst & Consorten: Dresden, Germany

In Public Transport, the development of new solutions to increase / generate revenue, then manage subsequent demand, makes services more adaptable and attractive to both regular and new users. Using public transport infrastructure and services as revenue-generating marketing and sales ‘tools’, is now crucial to stimulating ridership and increasing the ‘attractiveness’ and ‘relevance’ of public transport to daily life.

This session will show how through leveraging Infrastructure and Psychology, Public Transport Service Providers in Europe and Japan successfully market and sell the value of their networks and services and what aspects of this type of ‘selling’ can duly be effectively applied in cities and towns of any size, across the globe.

Francis Brisebois: Corporate Advisor – Design & Wayfinding, ARTM Montréal, Canada

Public Transport Service Providers worldwide continually grapple with how to increase ridership. In 2026, a more multidisciplinary approach to ‘incentivise’ greater use of bus, tram and train services, is emerging – to create more effective PT service network value and ‘stickiness’. Part of that multidisciplinary approach is incorporating wayfinding imperatives into the Marcoms mix.

In this session you will learn how ARTM in Montréal, Canada uses Wayfinding Infrastructure / Techniques to help ‘sell’ the value of PT services at the frontline – network-wide – selling that embeds lasting, positive behaviour change.