Caltrain and SamTrans Win Marketing Awards

A direct mail campaign and a brochure produced by the San Mateo County Transit District’s marketing staff have taken top honors in a national transportation industry competition.

SamTrans has received two first-place awards in the AdWheel Awards from the American Public Transit Association. The awards were to be presented at APTA’s International Public Transportation Exp in Dallas Sept. 26-28.

The transit district provides marketing support for the full array of public transit services in San Mateo County, including SamTrans buses, Caltrain and BART service.

Weekend Edition, a quarterly brochure designed to attract leisure riders back to Caltrain after a two-year suspension of service for construction, took top honors in the brochure category. The colorful brochure lists weekend destinations served by the train.

A direct-mail piece to attract new riders to the BART extension also won a first-place award. The mailer, which included a $15 BART ticket, was sent to 50,900 homes located along the extension.

More than 30 percent of the weekend tickets were redeemed.

“We are very pleased with the results of this campaign to promote ridership on the San Mateo County BART extension and we plan to continue to concentrate on localized promotion of the service,” said SamTrans Marketing Manager Patrick Boland.

“Programs such as these help to maintain ridership growth, which increased nine percent over last year,” Boland said.

9/26/05