The Fort Worth Transportation Authority (FWTA) has won a national award for its Transit Master Plan campaign, which included a year of gathering community input before developing the plan. The Grand Prize is in the category of Campaigns to Highlight Transit Needs/Funding.
The AdWheel Awards, presented by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), are for communications and marketing efforts and to showcase the importance of those efforts in the industry.
FWTA’s entry encompassed the information gathering, development and implementation plans. The process included surveys, community focus groups, Twitter town halls and a specially designed bus that would visit community events. The bus was equipped with laptops for visitors to take the survey.
“We made great efforts to make it convenient for participants to be involved in the process,” said Paul J Ballard, president/CEO of the Fort Worth Transportation Authority. “We had a master plan website and drove traffic to that site through an extensive ad campaign and community awareness endeavors.”
After the plan was formulated, FWTA published a four-page insert in the Star-Telegram to further drive awareness and to spotlight the funding needs for implementation. Since unveiling the plan, senior leaders have been meeting with elected officials and community leaders, and have been discussing partnerships and opportunities for providing new service.
“I’d like to thank our principal consultant, Nelson\Nygaard, for their efforts throughout the master plan process,” Ballard said. “They were essential to the campaign. Credit also goes to all of our staff who have worked diligently on this project and to the Pavlov agency, which developed the design for our marketing materials and for the newspaper insert.”
AdWheel Awards winners will be honored during a ceremony in California in September during APTA’s annual meeting.