Background

The ML1 Maylands Link bus service runs from Hemel Hempstead railway station via the town centre to Maylands Business Park, some 3-4 miles distant. The business park is one of the largest in the South east, with 650 businesses and close to 20k employees based there. At March 2015, the ML1 service had run for two years, funded by Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF) money. The service, run by Arriva under contract, was implemented to provide a link for commuters and business visitors from the railway station to Maylands Business Park via the town centre. The objective was to reduce single-occupancy car usage and congestion, which had previously been fuelled by the lack of bus services and the close proximity to Junction 8 of the M1.

Patronage at the time was good, but not at a level to make it commercially viable. Funding for the Maylands on the Move business engagement programme (LSTF) also ended in March 2015, so Hertfordshire County Council (HCC) were faced with a difficult situation on how to keep the service running for an additional period, buying time to stimulate extra patronage to make the service commercially viable. Further context included positive feedback from DfT on the general progress made to March 2015 in reducing single-occupancy car journeys into Maylands, but also the fact that HCC had only recently made cuts in certain lesser-used bus services, including a few local Hemel Hempstead evening and weekend services.

The solution, which forms the basis for this submission, was to identify local Section 106 funds to keep the route going for a further year from April 2015 (albeit at 12 services per day, versus 18 previously); and secondly to use a small amount of remaining LSTF funding (£16.7k) to design and procure a marketing campaign designed to stimulate extra patronage.

National Transport Awards, Oct 16

Shortlisted entry for Travel Information & marketing category

Author: Stephen Lloyd Jones

Campaign Analysis and Design

HCC’s data team reviewed Census and other trip-based data to derive a picture of commuting flows by mode into Maylands Business Park. This insight helped our marketing team to develop a campaign that would reach key geographical areas in ways that reflected current commuting methods. Appendix 1-6 describe the area and analysis of long and short distance commuting, including a significant level of car use by Hemel residents, many on or near the ML1 route. Likewise, many car based trips along the north-south corridor on the A41 could easily be replaced with rail+bus. At the station itself, the ML1 bus stop is located well behind the busy taxi rank and needed to be much more eye catching, with visual cues as passengers approach the exit. The design brief also had to focus on value for money and short journey time in order to offer travellers a rational choice vs minicabs. A message promoting daily best fare (based on a weekly season ticket) was agreed, comparing £1.35 per journey by bus, versus typically £10 by cab.

With our agency RP2, we derived a broad structure for each medium, using a consistent eye-catching design (examples below):

Hemel Station – ticket gate adverts, high impact bus shelter wrap, posters, promotional staff handing out promotional leaflets to commuters for a week

Large roadside billboards A41/A4251 to pick up car commuters Promoted Facebook, Twitter posts and paid-for digital ads across all key geographical areas;

timed to be visible at commuting hours with a strong focus on mobile devices; measurable call to action: visits to ML1 timetable page on the intalink website

Further HCC-generated social media from our various accounts (@intalink – 1450 followers among public transport users; @hertscc – 44k followers; HCC Facebook 5k ‘likes’; BigHerts LinkedIn group (80 senior decision-makers at large employers)

The online and billboard ads and ticket barriers ads ran to early June 2015 Business engagement with large employers, with posters, onsite briefings and online

information circulated for use internally and for their business visitors

Results and Outcome

The core campaign period spanned late April to the end of June 2015, immediately following the reduction in service frequency.

a) Online campaign – Twitter, Facebook, display ads

The ‘promoted’ social media and online ads reached carefully defined audiences as described previously. The measurable call to action was to visit the ML1 timetable page. The key fact in the summary below is that over 10,000 target individuals visited that site, which is an excellent engagement rate and value for money for a social media campaign of this type.

b) Patronage Data and Outcome

Clearly, the ultimate measure of success is bus usage. On this basis, the campaign contributed significantly to a strong increase in passenger numbers, despite a one third reduction in daily services (from 18 to 12) from April 2015. The summary graph below shows that on a comparable month-on-month basis, ML1 Maylands Link usage has increased by around 30% versus the previous year. At Period 12 (4 weeks to 27/2/16 – latest available) a total of 4,689 passenger journeys took place, versus 3,581 in the same period in 2015.

c) Outcome and Followup Activities

The ultimate measure of success of the campaign is whether the results generated commercial bidding interest to run the service commercially from March 2016. Thankfully the answer was yes, with commercial interest from two operators expressed formally in December 2015. This enabled HCC to reassure local businesses that the threat to the service was lifted, but that they must continue to help in publicising public transport to their staff, customers/clients and business visitors. Arriva started their new commercial service on 29th March 2016, with an additional (13th) early morning service to meet the needs of businesses such as Royal Mail.

APPENDIX Fig 1 - Car based journeys into Maylands

Fig 2 – Rail based journeys into Maylands

Tring & Berkhamsted

Leighton Buzzard

LutonDunstable

Bovingdon

Kings Langley

& Watford

Redbourn

& Harpenden

Berkhamsted

London

Fig 3 – Bus/coach based journeys into Maylands

Fig 4 – Car journeys to Maylands beginning in Hemel

Luton

Watford

Fig 5 – Bus journeys to Maylands beginning in Hemel

Fig 6 – Key employers served by ML1 service

Author: stephen.lloyd-jones@hertfordshire.gov.uk tel 01992588694