On Oct. 7,, the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) announced that it has honored the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) with its highest honor for creative excellence, the “Grand Award,” for CTA’s popular 2015 Courtesy Campaign. The Grand Award winners of APTA’s AdWheel Awards were announced on Tuesday at the APTA Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California.
CTA’s 2015 Courtesy Campaign, launched in May 2015, promotes more courteous behavior among CTA customers. The campaign was conceived and designed entirely in-house and contains messages that currently appear on car cards on trains and buses, covering a wide range of discourteous passenger behaviors from littering and eating on trains to not using all available doors on an arriving train. The campaign reflects some of the most commonly heard complaints from riders about the behaviors of fellow public transit passengers—not only on the CTA, but on transit systems throughout the world.
“I was proud to accept the APTA Grand Award on behalf of CTA, but am even prouder still of the work we’re doing at CTA to foster discussion among our customers about their CTA experiences,” said CTA President Dorval R. Carter, Jr. “We will continue to innovate and look for fresh and unique ways to prompt that dialogue.”
The campaign is the latest effort by the CTA to improve customer communications and passenger comfort, and promote awareness. Among other efforts since 2011, the CTA has developed popular social media channels, expanded digital information screens with bus and train service info, launched a rail-safety reminder campaign, and created the Renew Crew program to bring long-overdue improvements to 100 rail stations.
