Transit Land Game

Target Audience: The target audience was attendees of Transit Plan 2035 meetings and events. These included riders and non-riders and community stakeholder groups.

Strategy Objective:The objective of developing the Transit Land game was to create a way to educate the community in a fun, engaging and interactive way. No one wants to hear transit planning is hard – though it often is – but through playing the game participants can experience a glimpse of the constraints and considerations of creating a transit network themselves. The game encapsulated the goals of Transit Plan 2035's first round of engagement which were: - Hearing community priorities and vision for transit service - Identifying transit constraints and opportunities - Discussing tradeoffs associated with transit planning

Situation Challenge: CapMetro was preparing for its first round of engagement for the agency's Transit Plan 2035 initiative. As the agency's first transit plan developed post-pandemic, the realities of resources and tradeoffs were present more than ever when discussing what the future of transit looked like in Central Texas. The agency was looking at ways to engage communities while conveying these constraints. CapMetro's Planning team developed the concept of a board game and quickly began collaborating with the Marketing team to make "Transit Land" a user-friendly engagement tool for Transit Plan 2035.

Results Impact: The game was utilized at 10 focus groups with a total of 240 participants, 44 pop-up events and a Community Night Open House event. It was a key component at these events and allowed participants to think like a transit planner while designing their own transit network. This led to open discussions of tradeoffs and how to best improve CapMetro's existing transit system as participants provided feedback on what they think makes transit better. Feedback gathered from community members that played the game is being incorporated into an external engagement report, which will be considered during system scenario planning in the next phase of Transit Plan 2035. Transit Land also brought more awareness to CapMetro's service, Pickup. Many players learned of the service through the game mechanic.

Why Submit: Transit Land is a unique solution to engaging with the community while helping educate them on the challenges, constraints, and opportunities associated with transit planning, namely coverage vs frequency and unexpected circumstances (demonstrated with chance cards). It's an innovative way for any transit agency to demonstrate hard decisions that must be made. This leads to deeper understandings between community and the agency, fostering trust. Transit Land is an engagement tool that we expect to utilize for many years moving forward and believe it should win an Adwheel to spotlight how a non-traditional solution can help garner better engagement and feedback.