It seems that Boston is the only city in the USA that I know of that has “Wraps” or silkscreened whole trolley ads. Can citys recoup some of there costs of maintance if the adverstiser agrees to pay for all maintance and upkeep of the Wrapped Trolley?
http://www.shadowgraphics.net/what/sub%20wraps/trolley%20wraps.htm
not quite whole car wrap, and probably not to be considered trolley, since it’s diesel “light rail”, but NJTransit RiverLine has had a few ads on 1 section of its 3 section articulated cars.
SEPTA Philly and NJTransit buses have had whole vehicle bus wrap advertisements. I don’t remember seeing any SEPTA LRV wrap ads.
Transit advertising consisting of wraps is no big deal. The CTA and Pace have a number of buses with wraps and CTA also has rapid transit equipment with wrap advertising. The advertiser pays a higher rate for a wrap than for the usual outside ad space.
Madison Metro claims that bus wraps contribute a substantial amount of money to the bottom line. Not enough to elimnate the required subsidy, but enough that it could make a difference between balancing or not balancing the yearly budget.
I am OK with bus wraps from the standpoint of the outside looking in. A one-theme bus ad in some ways is less an eye sore than a hodge podge of messages plastered on a bus.
The problem I have with the wraps is from the inside looking out. Bus windows are more than for looking at urban scenery. You want to see out to tell whether you are approaching your stop, and you want to be able to do this whether you are in a seat or standing and hanging on to a stanchion. Looking out through the wraps is like looking through cheese cloth. You can see out, but the view is both dimmed and blurred. From that point of view (pun intended), bus wraps are annoying.
If they could wrap the bus (or LRV I guess) with a billboard that didn’t cover the windows with that cheese cloth effect, I would be 100 percent for it for the money it brings in to the transit agency.
It seems that ad agencys ae not paying enough. Akron OH used to charge 20.00 a bus card and 200.00 for a side of the bus card…while we are at has any noticed how trolley musuems try to keep there old ads in there trolleys. I was surprised at how racist is some of the old ads with caritures of blacks and Irish (Cigar ads esp.)
I second the observation that the problem is from inside the bus looking out. Not only does wrapping the bus make it difficult to see, especially at night and on cloudy days, but on a low light day the atmosphere inside is depressing. Painting over the windows is the big problem.
Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), the “T” in Fort Worth, and Capitol Metro in Austin wrap some of their buses. As a regular rider I get the inside impact. Interestingly, DART does not wrap any of the light rail vehicles or the TRE equipment. Only the buses are wrapped.
I asked DART why they wrap the buses, since it appears that a prominently displayed sign below the windows or on the back would do the trick. They claim the wrapping produces better resul
CATS used to wrap their buses, but they stopped quite a while ago.
I thought it was a good idea, but someone at CATS didn’t. He said it looked tacky and only brought in a couple hundred thousand dollars a year.
SF muni has wrapping on some light rail cars.
Homeland Security seems to be relaxing the rules as 911 fades into the past.
A full wrap pervents law inforcement from seeing what is going on inside the Bus or Trolley. If the windows are not covered was always OK.
Remember when we used to be the land of the free and the home of the brave?
I know a terrorist has never hijacked a bus or a light rail vehicle in the US, but one can never be too carefull, can one?
[soapbox]
But Egged Jerusalem does wrap our transit buses but it seems less opaque than some I’ve noticed elsewhere. I’d say about one bus out of twenty is wrapped.
Good idea gone bad…
Here in Atlanta, MARTA had a good idea. They started a “tourist loop” bus. There actually were two loops that ran past all the popular tourist spots and museums. They used a pool of shorter CNG busses and that were clearly marked “Tourist Loop” using a special logo that make it easy to identify. And, they put up special signs telling passengers where to board and what the fare was.
They only did two things wrong.
The busses only ran every 30 minutes. You could walk between most places the bus seviced in that time.
They wrapped about half the busses in advertising. The most prevelant ad was for a local exterminating service whose add features a giant caricature of an angry rat!
Ridership was near zero…go figure…
It’s not just the light rail that gets wrapped.
And frankly, even Amtrak has put wraps on the Horizon cars, IIRC.
…and Amfleet for Allen Iverson’s sneakers
…and Acela for the History Channel
Just as NASCAR sells sponsorships for team race cars, so transit agencies could sell sponsorships for individual buses and trainsets that cover the cost of operating it if not the cost of aquiring it.
Would you care if a bus was wrapped like a UPS truck, or if a trainset was wrapped like a FedEx truck? Both of those companies have airplanes painted in their colors. I bet USAirways would sponsor the bus or trainset that goes to the airport. I bet McDonalds or Pepsi would gladly sponsor a school bus or two. Corporations have huge advertising budgets and are only interested in how many potential customers will see it.
Lowes, which is based in Mooresville near Charlotte, paid Speedway Motor Sports 5 million dollars to name the Charlotte race track “Lowes Motor Speedway” for 5 years. I bet they would pay a reasonable amount to wrap a city bus or trainset in Lowes colors with their logo. They pay Hendrick Motor Sports more than 20 million dollars a year to wrap Jimmy Johnsons’s racecar in Lowes Colors with their logo on the hood. The NFL Carolina Panthers play in Bank of America Stadium. The NBA Charlotte Bobcats play in Time Warner Arena.
Just a thought.
[quote user=“Samantha”]
I second the observation that the problem is from inside the bus looking out. Not only does wrapping the bus make it difficult to see, especially at night and on cloudy days, but on a low light day the atmosphere inside is depressing. Painting over the windows is the big problem.
Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), the “T” in Fort Worth, and Capitol Metro in Austin wrap some of their buses. As a regular rider I get the inside impact. Interestingly, DART does not wrap any of the light rail vehicles or the TRE equipment. Only the buses are wrapped.
I asked DART why they wrap the buses, since it appears that a prominently displayed sign below the windows or on the back would do the trick. They claim the wrappin
MILW205
I’m a bit confused as to why the impetus is on DART to provide the marketing data on wraps that you are seeking. Why should DART care what the marketing data is? All they should care about is if it makes additional money. Instead, I would think that it is the advertisers who should be concerned about marketing data: they make the decision whether or not the additional cost of the wraps is justified. Perhaps approaching the advertisers requesting marketing data would get you the info you are seeking?
I’d be intereseted in seeing verification of your assertion for the rationale of why DART wraps buses and not LRV’s. In any event, the additional revenue that wraps bring in helps the transit system, contributing towards their ability to serve clientele that have no other alternatives.
DART is owned by the citizens of Dallas as well as those in the other participating service communities. It is a taxpayer funded entity, and they pick-up approximately 78 per cent of DART’s costs. DART is obligated to serve the interests of all the citizens in the service area, irrespective of whether they use the services, because they are paying for it.
Under the Texas Open Records Act, DART is required to make available to the citizenry information regarding its revenue and expense streams.
DART is obligated to use its equipment, i.e. buses, light rail vehicles, as well as its facilities, in a manner that enhances the quality of life in its service communities. Thus, when its paints its vehicles in a manner as to reduce the quality of the service provided to its constituents, which is not just a ride but a comfortable ride, it is obligated to demonstrate why it has agreed to the practice.
Clearly, those who buy the advertising should know whether wrapping the vehicle is more effective than painting their message below the wi
Wraps do not have to cover the windows, but I don’t see any problem if they do. You can see through them.
Whether or not they are a significant source of revenue depends on how much you charge for the space. For race cars, which incidentally do use wraps which do not cover the windows, the sponsor is the PRIMARY source of income for the team.
They changed from decals and paint to wraps because wraps are faster and easier.
I daily rode public transit for 37 of the 39 years that I worked for corporate America. I still use it three days a week to commute to the University of Texas.
Capital Metro is the bus system for Austin and its surrounds. They have wrapped several of their buses, so I have experienced as late as this week the effects of painting over the windows. Doing so greatly reduces the ability to see outside of the vehicle, especially on a low light day and at night. My guess is that you don’t see any problem with painting over the windows because you are not a regular rider on vehicle that has been wrapped.
When I was in Charlotte in May, I did not see any train sets or buses that were wrapped. I’ll bet the trains are not wrapped. If any of the buses are wrapped, I did not see them. I rode both while I was in Charlotte, where by the way I lived for more than four years.
DART could allocate its entire advertising revenue stream to wrapped advertisements, multiple it by ten, and it will still be an insignificant percentage of its income.