NJ Transit

The Challenge and the Approach

NJ TRANSIT is New Jersey's public transportation corporation. Its mission is to provide safe, reliable, convenient and cost-effective transit service with a skilled team of employees, dedicated to their customers' needs and committed to excellence.

Covering a service area of 5,325 square miles, NJ TRANSIT is the nation's third largest provider of bus, rail and light rail transit, linking major points in New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia. The agency operates a fleet of 2,027 buses, 711 trains and 45 light rail vehicles. On 236 bus routes and 11 rail lines statewide, NJ TRANSIT provides nearly 223 million passenger trips each year.

NJ TRANSIT needed to develop a web site for the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, one of their light rail transportation systems. The web site needed to be multi-functional as well as multi-lingual. Requiring a visually appealing format, it also needed to provide station and schedule information to their user base, create promotional opportunities for local businesses, announce community events, and register and reward VIP members.

Winning Strategies began by analyzing the goals of the site and anticipated user experience. NJ TRANSIT and the HBLR web site caters to a large, diverse audience. In order to create awareness, Winning Strategies, its advertising partner, and NJ TRANSIT created a web site that encouraged a sense of community. With "Club Light Rail" as the centerpiece, the MyLightRail.com and MiMejorMovida.com (Spanish version) web sites provide discounts and promote local events that would be of interest to community members who live within the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail system.

This strategy combines an offline and online strategy to promote local businesses and engage potential users thus raising awareness of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail as a transportation option of choice in the North Jersey area.

Results

Since its inception in November 2005, MyLightRail.com has boasted over 2 million hits and 86,000 visits. Its Spanish counterpart, MiMejorMovida.com, has had 120,000 hits and nearly 4,500 visits in the same timeframe.  In seven months, the "Club Light Rail VIP Member" promotion, which was inaugurated with the launch of these Web sites, has seen membership rise from zero to 850 registrants. Members were the first to find out about any promotions or changes to service; receive invitations to all VIP events; be entered into monthly drawings for great prizes and even receive special offers and discounts.