BART board to debate increasing revenue with video monitors, train ads

[DET63]

Unlike every other transit agency in the Bay Area, BART was able to stanch the economic bleeding over the past year and realize a modest operational surplus at the end of FY 2010 in June. The agency doesn't have a warm and fuzzy feeling, however, and Board President James Fang has asked staff to present additional revenue generating measures at tomorrow's board meeting. 

Though Fang said BART's fiscal stewardship over the past two years set an "example of how to run a transit system in a recession," the agency had to anticipate the next economic turmoil with greater diversity of revenue sources. "We can't rest on our laurels. Any way you can get more revenue into the system, that means you don't have to lay off people," he said.

 

Over the past month, BART staff looked into numerous best practices from transit operators around the world and narrowed the more realistic options to five [pdf]. Two of them would involve setting up video monitors in stations and train cars, though both have differing benefits and challenges. According to BART spokesperson Linton Johnson, Titan's current contract for advertising in stations gives them the right to bid first on station monitors, which they are expected to exercise with a proposal.

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Comment in response:

toomanyhipsters
10:37 PM on September 22, 2010

Clean those filthy, dank, smelly cars with your surplus, please. And buy some replacement upholstery that isn't porous fabric. People pee, puke, and do other unmentionables on it. It ought to at least wipe down. And Lynton Johnson, open those restrooms which you have kept closed since 2001 under the silly rouse of terrorism. I'll give you terrorism -- the smells on the BART trains.

 

[DET63]

On the BART system, the text-only monitors above the platforms provide information about coming trains, the train on the platform (when there is one), safety advice, elevator repairs and other service issues--and not much else. How much information/entertainment should be provided on platform monitors? Should there be news, weather, sports, funny videos, etc., like you can get at some gas stations? Or should the platform monitors be used only for providing information about the transit service?