AC Transit Public Perception Survey APTA Marketing & Communications Workshop February 26, 2018 Michele Joseph, Director of Marketing & Communications

What is a Public Perception Survey? Provides insight compares agency to other agencies and institutions Rates agency’s brand Captures both riders and non- riders Respondents mirror the service area demographics A public perception survey does just what it says—it gauges the public’s perception of your agency brand. The survey’s objectives are to compare your agency to the perception of other agencies—within the agency’s sphere of influence. In this case, we included other transit agencies, public utilities, and other institutions. The survey also captures both riders and non-riders, which is important when you’re tracking opinions for ballot measures or projects that will affect non-riders as well.

Why Conduct this Survey? Identifies how agency is perceived Provides insight into what the agency is doing right, and what can be improved Provides a tool to identify how perception has shifted over the years Offers guidance on key messaging, branding and service needs A public perception survey provides insight on what folks think about the agency—what are we doing right, and what are we doing not so well. We first conducted this survey in 2013, so there’s now three years worth of data to compare. It’s a great tool, especially your external affairs team. As you know, the marketing message you promote to gain new riders and retain existing riders is not necessarily the same messaging you’d use to encourage people who don’t use transit be supportive of a ballot initiative. The results help guide the message of what’s important to people who know of AC Transit.

2017 Survey Methodology Telephone survey of adults (18+) in the AC Transit service area using both landline and cell phone numbers Geographically representative 800 completed surveys Margin of Error: +3.5 percentage points Conducted in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Spanish by trained professional interviewers Where applicable, results compared with surveys in 2013 and 2015 We kept the methodology consistent from year to year, which is why we didn’t add a web panel or some other collection method. The number of completed surveys and the margin of error was consistent from 2013-2017. The surveys were conducted in English, Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese) and Spanish because those are the three most frequently spoken language in the District. As we move on the presentation, you’ll see where the research vendor made cross-references to previous years. It should be noted that the same vendor conducted the 2015 and 2017 surveys, and a different vendor conducted the 2013 survey.

Key Findings 44% of residents gave a positive rating vs. 39% in 2015 Self-reported ridership is up, with 51% riding occasionally, a seven-point increase since 2015 19% of residents report hearing something recently vs. 28% in 2015 AC Transit provides an important public service, especially for students and those with lower incomes AC Transit continues to improve its positive brand rating, with an increase of 5% points from 2017. Self-reported ridership is up from 2015, and interestingly, residents are hearing less about AC Transit in the news. This likely stems from the fact that in 2015 AC Transit was in the middle of labor negotiations, so there was likely more media coverage about it than in 2017. And…residents feel AC Transit continues to be an important public service,, especially for lower-income residents and students.

AC Transit Brand Rating Very positive and positive numbers – we want to see that continuing to move in the right direction. AC Transi’t positive brand rating is up 5 percentage points since 2015. A little less than half either have a neutral option of say they don’t know. Agency goal/KPI – increase positive perception of AC Transit 15% over two year period. Aggressive -

Ridership and Brand Trends Self reported ridership up 7% (in the occasional rider category), branding rating up 5 percentage points from all respondents, and among our core riders, our brand rating up 8 percentage points.

Awareness of AC Transit Compared to two years prior, recall of ACT in the news dropped 9 percentage points. You can see this as a plus or a minus, but take a closer look at what residents most recall hearing about ACT…

Recall – Top Mentions While the top issue people have heard about continues to be incidents involving buses, many have also hear something about changes to fares and routes, and budget challenges. Mentions of labor disputes are much lower than 2015.

Information Sources Not surprisingly, the trend shows people are hearing about us less through traditional mediums vs. digital and online. This underscores the importance of advertising, promoting and working media in the digital world – social media and on website, local blogs, etc.

Best Things About AC Transit Things residents liked best about AC Transit are convenience, affordability, the ability to go many places and being on time.

Desired Improvements The top things residents think that AC Transit can improve on are adding or expanding routes, increasing frequencies, and being on time.

Barriers to Riding AC Transit And we learned what barriers people say they have to riding AC Transit. Interesting to note that those indicating they do not ride because they have a car is down 7 points.

General Attribute Importance This chart shows the segmentation of how important an attribute is to them. For example, 75% of residents feel it’s important for AC Transit to serve low income people at students.

Service Attribute Importance And of the service attributes…Residents most value safety, reliability and convenience.

Comparing Ratings to Importance Describes AC Transit very well 5 Not important at all Very important Attributes placed on a quadrant chart to assess the relationship between ACT’s rating on that single attribute and its perceived importance. This chart shows all the point for the attributes tested Horizontal axis – plots the importance of the attribute Vertical axis – plots the ratings of that attribute For AC Transit – all attributes fell into the upper right quadrant, meaning all positive attributes are generally important to residents and all describe AC Transit. Now let’s take a look at the following charts, focusing on the upper right quadrant. 1 5 1 Does not describe AC Transit at all

General Attributes Put things into perspective – give us direction on what to focus on – service improvements and/or messaging. How well the attribute describes AC Transit, and the importance of the attribute. Here – you can see that our perception of being financially sound isn’t as strong as some of the other attributes, but it is relatively important to residents. This give us an area to focus on in terms of messaging – highlighting where we demonstrate strong fiscal and operational management .

Service Attributes Importance ratings on safety and reliability are higher than their descriptive ratings of AC Transit, which suggests that perception on those dimensions can be improved.

Public Perception Survey + & - PROS CONS By including riders and non-riders, more comprehensive picture of the brand Valuable data for planning a ballot measure Relatively inexpensive to administer Does not paint a complete picture on current riders Cannot use the intercept method since survey includes non-riders Not quite as relevant for the Planning and Marketing teams as a customer satisfaction survey would be By looking at residents rather than riders, you’ll get a broader picture of the agency’s brand awareness. And because the data represents all resdients, it’s a good tool for not only future service planning needs, but to prepare for a ballot measure as well. The cost of the survey to implement is around $40K, which is less than executing a larger scale customer satisfaction survey.

Next Steps Customer satisfaction survey this year Continue to focus on opportunities where perception of most important attributes can be improved RM3 messaging – continue to focus on importance of AC Transit to voters

AC Transit Public Perception Survey Michele Joseph Director of Marketing & Communications mjoseph@actransit.org