More Microtransit Marketing Confusion

Just found this ad through APTA‘s members-only Knowledge Gateway, from Passio Technologies. Ignore the words. Look at the picture.

But that’s not a photo of microtransit.  That is a photo of an elite fixed route commuter bus called Leap that existed in San Francisco for a few months in 2016-17.  I wrote about that project here. You’ll recognize the bus from the video at that link.  I wonder what the folks at Passio were thinking.

2 Responses to More Microtransit Marketing Confusion

  1. Dave October 23, 2023 at 6:52 pm #

    Here’s what they were thinking:

    It’s hard to find a photo of “successful” microtransit. Virtually all microtransit vehicles are empty most of the time, and then occupied only by 1-2 people the next plurality of the time. But if there are only 1-2 people in the photo, people will ask “how is that better than Uber?” So they picked a transity photo that still looks “special,” i.e. “not just a bus.” And they found the Leap photo.

  2. TransitDB October 25, 2023 at 9:50 am #

    I noticed that, too! Oh the irony…

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