Advertising Best Practices

Transit advertising is advertising inside buses, on the exterior of vehicles, and at bus shelters. One of the beauties of transit advertising is that the space comes free-of-charge; usually your only expenses are production costs. Utilizing the exterior of your vehicles for your logo and contact information, you can build your brand and raise awareness of the system throughout the community.  It’s like a traveling billboard, as you can see in the example on the right.

Transit advertising also can be a source of revenue or a way to highlight local partnerships. Many systems sell ads in the form of full or partial bus wraps.  It is important, however, to take into consideration the staff time and expenses of selling and maintaining the wraps and other ads.  You may find that using your vehicles to build your own brand is a better use of the space.  You also need to take your passengers' experience into account, like making sure they can see clearly out of the windows.

Pullman Transit, in Pullman, WA implemented bus wraps displaying the local Washington State University mascot, a cougar, paid for by the university (show in photo on the left). Wayne Thompson, Manager, said, “The bus wraps remain a big success in our system, and are recognized almost as a Pullman Transit trademark now region wide.” However, Mr. Thompson notes that visibility out of the side windows has been a concern for passengers. Also, because the window areas are perforated, they need to be washed more gently, and hard water and soap build-up can occur. With new buses, he now makes sure that at least the front two windows are uncovered. He also recommends looking into material that allows for more aggressive daily washing.

Fairmont-Marion County Transit Authority (FMCTA) in Fairmont, WV also sells ad space on their vehicles.  They mostly only do window coverings now, so that their own logo and branding is still visible on the vehicles.  You can see an example on the right.  George Levitsky, General Manager, said a clear film can be put over the wrap, which can extend its life, if needed.  Mr. Levitsky recommends ensuring that the advertising agreement takes into account the costs of printing, installing, as well as removing the bus wrap.  See FMCTA's sample advertising contract.

Southern Nevada Transit Coalition (SNTC), based in Laughlin, NV, also learned this last lesson, especially that there is almost always some damage done to the vehicles during removal of the bus wrap.  In addition, the time and labor involved in the entire process often outweighed the revenue benefits.  Deb Dauenhauer, Executive Director, says SNTC no longer sells advertising, as they didn’t have the staff time to dedicate to it.  However, they did create a space to put ads on the back of their vehicles for in-kind advertising arrangements. Their maintenance team bolted a frame to the back of the bus, and ads can be easily changed out.  They primarily give this space to their local radio station, in exchange for air time to promote their transit services.  You can see the frame and the radio station ad that goes into it below.

Bill Telovsky of New York State DOT also shared that several rural subrecipients used to do bus wraps that incorporated local themes, like the Adirondack Mountains, as seen on the left for Franklin County Public Transit.  However, the wraps faded, peeled, or covered too much of the bus, and it ended up not being a sustainable practice.  They now simply sell ad space inside their bus and on their schedules.