Texas Transit Association

to stimulate ridership.

Transit board ready to promote
By JODI SHERIDAN
Texarkana Gazette

There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but there is a free ride.

The Texarkana Urban Transit District Board on Thursday approved two promotional projects that members hope will help improve ridership and increase bus pass sales in the next few months.

The two ideas came out of the Transit Advisory Committee meeting last week.

The first is a free ride day. It was approved in the TAC as a potential promotion for Oct. 31. But some members of the board thought there might be confusion with another free ride day.

TUTD General Manager Daniel Swanson said there is a national free ride day-Communities in Motion Day-on Oct. 16. There was some concern that if the national day was advertised on television with the Texarkana free ride day, it would confuse riders.

So, the board voted to conduct the local free-ride day in conjunction with the national observance on the 16th. This promotion is aimed at increasing ridership.

“The purpose would be to have someone ride who doesn’t normally ride,” Swanson said .

Texarkana, Ark., Mayor Horace Shipp, the committee chairman, suggested a broader purpose.

“The purpose is to bring exposure, awareness and education about the bus system to our total population,” he said.

The board also agreed to a promotion that Swanson hopes will increase pass sales. If a person buys a pass in October and November, the buyer gets a free pass in December. However, if a buyer only buys a pass in one of those two months, the December pass will be half price.

Swanson said to qualify, the passes must be purchased at full price, and when a customer buys a second pass for November, they must show their October pass to get the free December one.

There was a concern early on that giving a free month of passes to riders would hurt the TUTD’s operating budget. But Swanson said that of the approximately $8,000 the system earns each month from riders, only about $1,500 is from the sale of passes.

“$1,500 won’t kill us,” he said. “It could turn out that it will benefit us in October and November.”

The full-price passes for October will be available for purchase from Sept. 29 to Oct. 8. The full-price passes for November will be on sale from Oct. 30 to Nov. 8.

TAC member Joe Kelly, who proposed the Oct. 31 free-ride day and the buy two-get one free deal, said he just wants to help the bus system thrive.

“My idea is to increase ridership and revenue,” Kelly said. “You might make more money than you think.”