Free bus tickets promote alternative transportation

The university is giving away free bus tickets. But there’s a catch: you have to be a university employee to get them.

UW–Madison Transportation Services is mailing free Madison Metro tickets and schedules to nearly 900 campus employees who live within a quarter-mile of bus stops with direct, all-day service to the university. The employees were identified using Madison Metro’s geographic information systems technology.

The tickets are paid for out of a Wisconsin Department of Transportation grant designed to entice more faculty and staff to ride the bus, car pool, bike or walk to work.

The Quik-Tix bus tickets mailed to UW–Madison employees will be valid through Feb. 28, says Rachel Martin, coordinator of the university’s Transportation Demand Management program. TDM encourages employees to use alternative forms of transportation for their work commute.

“This is the first time we have used GIS technology to target market transit service, and we are very excited to see how many employees take advantage of the free bus tickets,” Martin says.

The university currently offers many incentives to increase the use of alternative transportation. These include pre-tax savings on city bus passes for employees, a park-and-ride program, flex parking, an emergency ride home program, and free bus passes for students.

Yet 60 percent of university faculty and staff do not use an alternative form of transportation to get to work, according to campus figures. UW–Madison employees driving alone to work significantly contribute to traffic congestion in downtown Madison, as UW–Madison is the largest employer in Dane County, Martin says.

Other marketing efforts funded by the grant to raise awareness of alternative transportation include:

• Placing a “bus wrap” on a campus bus to highlight the benefits of alternative commuting.
• Updating the TDM logo and slogan, creating ads to be placed in the campus newspapers, placing TDM banners/flags on campus, and developing alternative commuter campus kiosks.
• Publishing a “Commuter Alternatives” newsletter for insert in Wisconsin Week, the university’s faculty-staff newspaper, and developing a commuter recognition program as part of the newsletter.
• Printing a university bicycle brochure that lists campus bike routes, locations of tire inflators and safe riding tips.