On @Translink and promoting the vote on buses/Skytrain/Canada Line
If you follow me on Twitter, you may know that I spent the better part of the past 2 weeks complaining that EVERYWHERE (by transit) had visible digital displays (on the Canada Line TVs, Skytrain LCD displays, buses’ front displays) saying “Go, Canucks, Go“. I complained that this year’s Federal election could possibly be course-changing for Canadians, and that we needed help to increase voter turnout. So I asked them if they could change their signs to “Go, Vote Now” or “Vote Today”.
I contacted my friend Erin McConnell who works for Translink (I also asked Ken Hardie on Twitter, and he was kind enough to respond to my concerns). I am posting in its entirety Erin’s response (with permission)
Thanks for the email – I want you to know that since we first saw your tweets, we’ve been talking about your idea internally. In a word, yes, we absolutely would love to promote voting and think your idea is terrific. Unfortunately, the remedy isn’t easy or cost-effective. As I understand it, when we bought the electronic display system we had the opportunity to have the company that supplied it pre-program it with some “fun” messages like Go Canucks Go, Go Whitecaps, etc.
At the time, we didn’t think about using the screens to promote voting – instead, we focused on sharing excitement around larger sporting events as so many customers take transit to the games. We’ve since looked into whether or not we can program in new messages (like Vote Today!) and we can, but the cost is substantial – more than $15,000, not including people hours, which is formidable – we would have to program the system and each of the buses manually. The time component is so great in fact that cost aside, it’s not something we accomplish before voting day.
But I was serious when I said we like the idea. Apparently we are able to go and re-program the system at key points throughout the life of the technology. As a result, we’ve slated the voting message to be programmed as an option at that point so we can use it going forward. In the meantime, we’ll be tweeting and reminding folks to vote on Monday and we’ll also be putting reminders on the SkyTrain station TVs, which will reach a lot of our customers.
Ken Hardie’s tweet to me and Diamond Isinger also mentioned this:
RT @kenhardie: @diamondisinger @hummingbird604 – Yes! Vote Today will get big-time play on SkyTrain screens on Monday.
I’m really pleased with Translink’s approach to listen to customers and the fact that they addressed my concern ASAP. And for the love of God, if you are Canadian, and of legal voting age GO VOTE ON MONDAY.
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Now if they could only get the trolley busses to work on time….
Although I’m not kidding about that, getting the message about voting onto transit is more important than every trolley bus that has been late or no-showed on me this year – all 12-15 or so of them.
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