Description
Transportation Demand Management (TDM) programs focus on reducing single-occupancy vehicle trips and VMT by encouraging transit use, ridesharing, walking, biking, and telework. TDM programs work to understand and address barriers to using transit or other sustainable modes of transportation to restore and/or rebuild ridership. These programs also help to maximize use of significant capital investments in the region through an operational approach.
King County will implement several key TDM initiatives, including:
- Regional TDM campaigns to coincide with the openings of RapidRide, Light Rail, and other major system expansions or service changes. These campaigns will educate riders about new transit options and provide incentives to encourage them to explore and adopt these services, maximizing use and ridership on the expanding regional system.
- A revitalized In Motion program to deliver neighborhood-scale, community-based social marketing campaigns focusing on both commute and “beyond the commute” trips, given post-pandemic interest and demand to use transit for all trip types. These efforts will promote sustainable transportation choices, reduce congestion and single occupancy vehicle use, and help improve system reliability.
- Expanded Community Mobility and Community Transportation Navigators programs to foster strong relationships with community-based organizations and trusted local leaders to increase mobility access to priority communities. By offering peer-to-peer transit education that is culturally relevant, linguistically appropriate, and rooted in the priorities of local communities, these programs will empower individuals to embrace public transit options and expand opportunities.
- A robust Youth Mobility Program to inspire and prepare the next generation of transit users for long-term ridership. This program will increase awareness and use of the Free Youth Transit Pass Program, encourage young people to adopt transit as their first travel option, and provide workforce development opportunities for those interested in careers in transportation.
- Integration of TDM principles and programming into major land use and capital investment projects to maximize the efficiency of existing transit infrastructure. By syncing sustainable transportation strategies with regional capital investments, King County will increase transit ridership and optimize use of these major investments.
- Pilot innovative approaches to increase transit ridership for public events, aimed at festival and event ticketholders. Often attendees do not consider the option or are unaware of how to access transit. King County will work with external partners to pilot innovative approaches to reach new markets by partnering with event organizers of major cultural, sporting, concert, and festival events. Depending on the size, type, potential impact of and lead-time prior to the event, Metro’s support may include facilitating fare sponsorship or transit fare integration with event ticketing (e.g. the Climate Pledge Arena model), joint promotion and marketing of events, custom wayfinding, and signage and/or custom and/or shuttle service to/from major events. King County will develop and implement an event support strategy and pilot implementation of this strategy to understand how event partnerships help engage new riders, and expand ridership of existing riders. These pilot events will expand lessons learned to inform future strategies to further promote transit to and from major events across the County for all riders, adding to system reliability during major events.
- Integrate Transit GO rewards program into the ORCA system. The Transit GO rewards program allows riders to earn points by riding public transportation. Rewards points can be redeemed for either free mobile tickets on the Transit GO Ticket app or for credits on private transportation modes including Bird and Lime. King County will advocate for the Regional ORCA Operations Team to incorporate the Transit GO rewards program into the ORCA system and implement ORCA rewards program. King County has successfully utilized limited term local funding and grants to sponsor rewards campaigns for transit travel via the Transit GO reward program. Transitioning this platform to the ORCA system could result in more rewards campaigns with a larger scope of influence. The ORCA agencies will need to agree to add rewards functionality to the ORCA system and prioritize it against other new work.