Q How much money does Metro Transit make off light-rail car ads that cover the whole car? Do they harm the paint?
A Last year Metro Transit received $356,400 from these ads, according to spokesman Bob Gibbons.
Advertisers pay about $15,000 to wrap a train car for one month, he said. There’s a discount for covering three or more cars. Metro Transit gets 60 percent of the sale; the vendor, Titan Worldwide, gets 40 percent.
Gibbons said that the advertising wraps do not harm train car finishes.
On earlier city bus ads, there were problems with bits of paint coming off when wrap material was removed, he said. But that was before light rail existed, and the vendor repaired the damage. Now two vinyl products are used; one is for metal and the other covers windows. The window film is perforated for visibility.
In response to complaints, Metro Transit policy changed recently so that no more than 50 percent of window surfaces on either side can be covered with advertising.
At the end of the advertising contract, the ads are peeled and thrown away, Gibbons said. They can’t be re-used.
In the Chicago area, it’s not uncommon. Both CTA and Pace (suburbs) have sold wrap-type ads that cover an entire bus. Several pairs of CTA rapid-transit cars have similar ads that do not go over the windows.
I don’t know about your own Armed Forces, but in Canada for about six years now, our 60 passenger buses have been so decorated, probably with money from the Recruiting and Public Affairs budgets.
That is what I sell for a living, tho I dont do many “wraps”…lots of compound curves and odd surface types. It is very labor intensive to install. Bus wraps are just plain nasty, with all the windows, vents and hardware. You need a very good detailed blueprint of the vehicle and then do considerable measuring to verify.
So true - it does look odd, very hard to place, especially when you consider that when I’ve seen it, its often just one car out of the train covered in the ad. The ads they started showing on the Red Line between Metro Center and Gallery Place are really weird as well. Took that line at least a hundred times when I lived up there, but never did get used to it.