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 2025 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 nonfarebox?
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.

Albin Sinani: Team Leader – Campaign Management & Online Marketing, Stuttgarter Straßenbahnen AG (SSB): Stuttgart, Germany

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 Germany, 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
Tasuku Takahama: Manager – Social Business Solutions, JR East Marketing &
Communications Inc: Tokyo, Japan

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 everyday 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 2025, 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 MarComms 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.