SMILE cities attend a workshop on how to run a successful transport awareness raising campaign
No matter how many new public transport initiatives are implemented, their impact will be minimal if the public is not aware of them and if they are not promoted effectively. With this message in mind, Transport & Travel Research Ltd (the CIVITAS SMILE DET Co-ordinator) organised a training workshop for the CIVITAS SMILE cities on 7th June 2006. The target audience were the Local Dissemination Managers for those cities, whose role is to promote the CIVITAS transport initiatives in their cities to their citizens.
The content for the training workshop was based upon the findings of the EU funded project ‘TAPESTRY’, which had looked at how to carry out successful and effective communication to support and promote sustainable transport policies. The workshop took a practical approach and covered all aspects of carrying out a campaign: planning, targeting the audience, action, delivery and assessment/evaluation. These presentations were based on the guidelines and case studies developed within the TAPESTRY project. The workshop also looked at human psychology; before starting a campaign it is vital to understand people’s attitudes and understand the thought processes behind people’s decisions. Some of the barriers that prevent people from changing their travel behaviour were also explored.From the presentations it emerged that it was very important to have the support of local stakeholders and to plan the campaign thoroughly before embarking on it. It is also necessary to set realistic objectives and to target a specific section of the public. The cities also had the opportunity to share ideas and experiences of promoting new initiatives in public transport in their regions and left the workshop full of ideas for future campaigns. For more information on TAPESTRY: alan [dot] lewis [at] ttr-ltd [dot] com.
