Bloomington Transit board to consider new advertising policy at Tuesday meeting
Up for a vote by the Bloomington Transit board on Tuesday will be a policy change that reduces the amount of advertising on the city’s public buses.
The Tuesday (Dec. 17) meeting is the final monthly meeting of the year for the five-member board.
Last month, the issue of bus advertising got a lot of discussion, which was preceded by committee work to review the current advertising policy. So a vote on the change in policy was not unexpected.
A concern was raised earlier in the year by BT board member Doug Horn about the loss of brand identity for the public bus agency. Full-wrap bus ads for local attorney Ken Nunn’s law firm are a fixture on Bloomington Transit’s fleet.
The idea of reducing the amount of bus advertising, as part of an effort to improve BT’s brand identity, has been a topic of conversation for BT staff for at least a year.
The board meeting will also include a raft of routine updates, like ridership figures.
For November, the year-over-year monthly ridership numbers on fixed bus routes are down by 9.5 percent—from 255,040 in 2023 to 230,319 in 2024.
The spring numbers have been strong enough to keep the year-to-date ridership ahead of last year’s pace—2,343,677 through November 2024 compared to 2,272,642. That’s about a 3-percent gain. But from July through November, this year’s ridership is off by about 6 percent compared to 2023.
Two routes where ridership was clearly down in November this year compared to last year were the #6 (Campus Shuttle, Limited) and the #9 (IU Campus/Campus Corner, Limited), which serve the Indiana University campus.
It’s BT’s planning manager Shelley Strimaitis who is likely to present the ridership figures, as well as an update on the new fare collection system that BT rolled out last month. The new system, by Umo, offers similar functionality to its previous smartphone-based system, with one policy-driven change.
The fare policy change leaves the $1 fare the same, but any rider’s fares are capped at $30 for 30 days. It eliminates the need to pay $30 up front for a monthly pass. The cap also eliminates a rider’s need to calculate whether a $30 pass would make economic sense for them.
One difference between the new platform and the previous smartphone system is a scannable dynamic QR code that appears on the passenger’s screen, which serves as the bus ticket. The dynamic QR code gets scanned at the farebox on boarding.
Another routine update that will be given at the meeting is the number of vacancies for bus drivers—it’s 7 this month. A possible question from the board for staff: Does BT have enough drivers to cover the first-of-the-year launch of the new Route #13 offering service outside the city limits on the west side of Bloomington?
The specifics of the new route have been discussed since September. It’s the Monroe County government that will be funding the route, with ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds.
The details of the new advertising policy include an prohibition of outside advertising on any of BT’s all-electric buses.
Full advertising wraps will be phased down, with no more than 50 percent of fixed-route buses eligible for wraps in 2025, dropping to 25 percent in 2026. BT Access vehicles are entirely off-limits for full or partial wraps.
Under the policy that is set for a vote on Tuesday, each advertiser is capped at a maximum of two full wraps and six total wraps at any time.
The Bloomington Transit board holds its meetings on Tuesdays at 5:30 p.m. at the agency’s facility on Grimes Lane.
