HOWARD LIPIN / Union-Tribune
A television monitor in a Metropolitan Transit System bus on Route 5 to College Grove showed news, weather, sports and advertisements. Several buses and trolleys are experimenting with the video screens, and they're likely to be a coming attraction.
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They've popped up in bank lobbies and on gasoline pumps, and now video screens may be bound for buses and trolleys throughout San Diego County.
The Metropolitan Transit System and North County Transit District are planning to equip their fleets with small video displays, showing short snippets of news and other programming, route and bus stop information and, of course, commercials.
The screens have been tested in seven buses and two trolley cars, but if you haven't yet seen one on your route, you will.
Although negotiations are on hold, plans call for the equipment to be rolled out countywide later this year, with the advertising becoming a new revenue device for the two transit agencies.
“I enjoy watching it. I think it's a little interesting,” Erika McMillan of Logan Heights, a daily bus passenger, said during a ride downtown on a video-equipped Route 5 bus one day last month.
On the same bus, Grace Powell, a law student heading to her job as a legal assistant, was paying no attention to the displays.
“I'd rather look out the window,” she said. The screens are too busy with information, Powell said, and, “I don't really care about the weather across the country.”
But Liz Hirsch isn't nearly as forgiving.
“You can't get away from it (even) if you sit in the back of the bus,” said Hirsch, who takes buses and trolleys between Normal Heights and her job at a small publishing company near Old Town.
“It's so annoying because it's all commercials,” Hirsch said. “I think if they turned the sound off, it wouldn't be so bad.”
The screens and video content are from Transit Television Network of Orlando, Fla. Robert Bridge, the company's vice president of marketing, said programming is downloaded via Wi-Fi technology twice daily, ensuring that regular passengers will get different material for their morning and afternoon or evening commutes.
Bridge said the commercial content runs only about 12 minutes out of an hour, less than prime-time network programming. “We want to make sure the passengers are entertained,” he said in an interview from Los Angeles, where the company is installing its system.
Testing here began in October in a pilot program coordinated by the San Diego Association of Governments, which develops projects for both major agencies.
Rob Schupp, a spokesman for Metropolitan Transit, said his agency expects to have the devices installed on all buses and trolleys, perhaps as early as fall. Tom Kelleher, a North County Transit District spokesman, said the two agencies prefer to negotiate separate deals, but that Transit TV would rather sell advertising in the county as a single market.
The screens – two per bus, six or eight for trolleys – put out a steady stream of news and sports briefs in text format. There are segments on nature and history, extreme-sports footage and quick word puzzles, among other material.
On a more practical note, there are “next stop” announcements and a scrolling list of upcoming stops along the left side of the screen.
Schupp said the announcements are designed to meet federal requirements for passengers with disabilities and will relieve drivers of the tedious chore.
The raison d'être for Transit TV, however, is the commercials.
“Our viewers are exposed to Transit TV twice a day, for an average of 45 minutes per journey,” the company boasts to prospective advertisers. Transit passengers, it says, represent “a truly captive audience – no channel changing.”
Bridge said San Diego passengers are getting a pilot form of the programming for now. Once a deal is in place, Transit TV will improve the content and may seek a partnership with a local television station for news.
Mario Oropeza, a SANDAG project manager, said Transit TV was the only vendor answering a request for proposals for video programming.
The company, which takes a share of advertising revenue in exchange for providing the equipment and programming, estimated the two transit agencies could share $21,250 to $42,500 in the first year and as much as $476,000 after five years, Oropeza said. The deal is subject to negotiation.
A survey of 2,065 passengers, conducted in November on buses and trolleys equipped with the screens, was positive for the project. An 82 percent majority approved of the equipment; only 5 percent disapproved, while the rest were neutral.
Jeff Ristine: (619) 542-4580; jeff.ristine@uniontrib.com
