Pace Bus No. 6245 pulled into a Schaumburg office park, the doors swung open and driver Reggie Rivers flashed a smile at his first passenger of the afternoon as he shared some news.
“We’ve got a treat for you today,” he told Betty Tabor as she stepped on to the bus for an hourlong ride to Forest Park. “You can watch TV while you ride home.”
Indeed, Tabor found herself testing her trivia knowledge instead of taking a nap. Fellow Route 757 commuter Louis Webb moved from the back seat to the middle, where the two TV screens are, to watch Kirk Douglas in his 1946 film debut, “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers,” which happened to be playing that day.
The bus is one of two Pace buses equipped with flat-screen television monitors that show preprogrammed entertainment and news. Monday marked the beginning of the first full week of such service, and in coming months, TVs will be added on hundreds more of the vehicles.
The decision to install the high-resolution monitors puts Pace on the front edge of a trend that could expand to buses and rail cars around the country. From Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., cash-strapped transportation authorities are looking toward the televisions–and the advertising money that comes with them–as a way to raise revenue without raising fares.
“With federal, state and local funding constraints, transit agencies in general are getting very aggressive about looking for new sources of revenue,” said John Drayton, manager of vehicle technology for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. “We see there being substantial revenue potential by selling ads inside a bus.”
Even the Chicago Transit Authority is considering the move. The agency recently issued requests for proposals so it could evaluate the market, according to Robyn Ziegler, an agency spokeswoman.
Not everyone thinks it’s a good idea. Those who are concerned about noise pollution and commercialization of government property are organizing against the movement, as are those who think Americans already spend too much time in front of the tube.
“What this amounts to is really forcing people to watch televised ads at a time when many parents, in particular, are trying to control and limit their children’s TV watching,” said Frank Vespe, executive director of TV Turnoff Network, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization.
“When TV has been linked to education problems, to rising obesity, the idea that transit agencies would act in place of parents and require people to watch TV is pretty outrageous,” he said.
For Pace, the decision was a way to raise cash and possibly boost ridership, which has sagged. So in September, the board agreed to let Transit Television Network of Orlando install 15-inch or 17-inch monitors on its buses in exchange for a minimum of $500,000 over five years, said Blaine Krage, an agency spokesman.
The revenue comes from the advertising that Transit Television Network hopes to sell. While the TVs now show preprogrammed entertainment and news with a few public-service announcements mixed in, the contract allows up to 18 minutes of advertising per hour, and Pace is allotted another two for service information, Krage said. The remaining 40 minutes will consist of financial, world and national news, sports and entertainment, ranging from multiple-choice trivia questions (Q: Who is considered the father of botany? A: Theophrastus) to TV classics like “I Love Lucy” and “The Beverly Hillbillies.”
A different movie will be shown in segments each week.
Eventually there will be a fixed column on the left edge of the screen that will give riders up-to-the-minute-details on the bus route.
“We view it as providing the customer with a lot more information than what they currently have,” Krage said. “That’s the main purpose. We feel it also is improving their daily ride.”
But it’s the advertising that makes the deal work for Pace.
“It helps,” Krage said. “It’s not the end-all to our budget problems, but any additional revenue always helps.”
The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which operates Washington’s Metro system, are considering similar steps.
“We are facing a $30 million budget shortfall,” said Leona Agouridis, a spokeswoman for Washington’s transit authority, which raised fares in July for the first time in eight years and may have to do so again.
“Within that environment, we’ve got a responsibility to look at ways we can bring in additional revenue,” she added, noting that the initial proposal is to put TVs on six rail cars and 25 buses.
But others say it is inappropriate for a public-transit agency to foist intrusive advertising on its riders.
“The purpose of mass transit is to get people from place to place, not to clobber them with ads,” said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, a Portland, Ore.-based non-profit organization. “People don’t like being forced to watch advertising. There’s something intrinsically repugnant about compelling people to watch and listen to ads.”
Noise has been a source of consternation for some riders of the Milwaukee County Transit System, which began installing TVs on its buses last year, said Joe Caruso, marketing director for the agency.
“Folks just said, `The bus is supposed to be quiet’ and `I liked it that way and I don’t want to be interrupted by stop announcements or ads or any other audio,'” he said.
But Caruso noted that a random telephone survey in the fall indicated that the TVs have been well received.
“Probably one of the most popular features of the system is the stop announcements, which is one of the main reasons why we wanted to do this,” he said. “So that was very gratifying to see.”
Pace decided to start with TVs in two buses to work out glitches such as volume.
In March, it will begin adding sets to about 380 buses and eventually will equip the entire 650-vehicle fleet, Krage said.
The agency intends to survey passengers about the TVs. Judging from the response of riders on Route 757, they could prove popular.
“It shocked me,” Webb said of his initial reaction. “I thought I was on the wrong bus.”
But within minutes, he was taking advantage of the TV.
“It’s cool,” he said. “I usually go to sleep, but now I’ve got something to watch.”
