Chapter 5, Part 4, ACCS Strategic Plan

Continued Services

Recommended New, Enhanced, and Modified Services

• School outreach is currently covered under employer outreach, where schools are treated as an employer.

• Schools are also engaged through tracking implementation of and adherence to TDM site plan conditions.

• In partnership and coordination with Arlington Public Schools (APS), implement a coordinated TDM for Schools program, beyond site plan conditions, aimed at staff and students.

  ─ Promote student free bus ride program.

  ─ Expand walking school bus and Bicibus (biking school bus) programs to additional schools.

  ─ Provide on-bike cyclist and traveler education on all non-SOV options to middle and high school students.

  ─ Support APS elementary school bike education programs.

  ─ Offer guidance on establishing bike and walk “buses” to school.

• Identify a business development manager to serve as a direct point of contact for schools' outreach. Consider repurposing an employer-focused manager for school outreach.

Continued Services

Recommended New, Enhanced, and Modified Services

• Offer bike safety, skills, and learn-to-ride classes (taught by the Washington Area Bicyclist Association) and lead neighborhood walks.

• Provide online information and marketing about all travel options in Arlington and all the services that ACCS provides—inclusive of transit, biking, walking, and carpooling/vanpooling.

• Provide a calculator showing the savings (money, calories, and CO2 emissions) of using a mode other than SOV travel.

• Hold events (currently through Car Free Diet and BikeArlington) to promote using modes other than driving alone. Provide a limited selection of printed brochures for use at in-person events.

• Use a variety of online marketing methods to promote non-SOV use, including social media, videos, and web ads.

   

• Add more hands-on learning to the community outreach program, such as educational group bike rides (to provide instruction and confidence-building to encourage intermediate and recreational riders to use biking for transportation) and travel training/bus tours.

• Consider rebranding ACCS and its programs to be inclusive of trips beyond commuting to work or school and to streamline messaging about trip types and the importance of air quality and congestion mitigation.

─ Leverage professional branding consultant, including focus groups, to understand current brand awareness as an input to rebranding decisions.

• Update and consolidate branding and online information and resources to provide more clarity, clear points of contact, and highlight the array of transportation options available.

• Evaluate and update social media strategy to focus on specific audiences with diverse and dynamic messages and videos.

• Review the distribution of hard copy brochures and limit distribution to locations where they might be better utilized. Focus on increasing the availability of downloadable materials/on-demand printing and QR codes; make modifications for broader use and distribution.

• Offer new, dynamic, and changing marketing campaigns (outside Car Free Diet) to keep the message fresh and encourage mode shift. Incorporate marketing campaigns into annual workplan.

• Evaluate and recraft current general-public marketing (Car Free Diet outreach) with revised messaging tailored to both recurring and non- recurring trips.

• Leveraging the County's Title VI Program Language Access Plan, evaluate the need for translation of materials into additional languages.

• Provide incentives for purchasing personal mobility devices, e.g., cargo bikes, e-bikes.

• Use gamification and community challenges to encourage non-SOV use.

• Work with Arlington's Department of Human Services and Arlington Transit and their low-fare pilot to determine ways to leverage the program and its participants, including collaborating with organizations that are part of the Community Partner Program.

• Evaluate consolidation of the marketing function from ACCS's individual programs into one overarching marketing function.

Current Services

Recommended New, Enhanced, and Modified Services

• Offer in-person travel assistance and sell fare media at physical Commuter Stores (both fixed locations and mobile stores).

• Provide a Commuter Information Center (CIC) that responds to email inquiries and fare sales related calls.

• Online sales of fare media (and redemption of transit benefits) for transit agencies throughout the region. The fare passes are sent to the individual purchaser.

• Provide an online store and physical distribution center for hard-copy brochures of transportation information including transit schedules and maps.

• Simplify CIC call center menu into fare sales, ART, and traveler information. Clarify branding for callers to be clear that it is a call center for ART (currently branded as Commuter Direct in the call-in menu). Commuter Direct may not be a brand that is familiar to everyone calling in.

• Explore adding alternative format traveler information (e.g., providing Braille or audio formats) at The Commuter Stores.

• Re-evaluate Commuter Information Center, CommuterDirect.com, and Commuter Stores with respect to current and projected traveler needs and changing technologies.

• Re-evaluate breadth of paper brochure distribution.

Continued Services

Recommended New, Enhanced, and Modified Services

• Provide current transit and technology news through the CommuterPage eNews report.

• Conduct research to keep abreast of best practice examples to inform ACCS's programs.

• Conduct surveys to evaluate promotions and programs.

• Evaluate Arlington-specific results for regional and local surveys, including State of the Commute, Household Travel Survey, and Arlington Resident Travel Survey.

• Assist TDM for Site Plans with required transportation performance studies for site plan developments.

• Conduct other research efforts as needed.

• Re-evaluate the research program's goals and purpose, and therefore the studies it conducts, to ensure it meets the needs of ACCS and the County's Transportation Division.

• Evaluate internal County staff collaboration and coordination and make recommendations (e.g., develop a better connection between TDM and Transit, for provision of transit information to customers).

• Collaborate with other offices in the Department of Environmental Services to integrate efforts for reducing VMT and parking demand, as well as TDM, into corridor and transportation planning studies, especially on corridors designated as primary bike routes.

• Work with the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation to broaden the use and application of state-administered CMAQ funding.

• Develop funding resiliency. Establish a task force to explore new federal funding opportunities for TDM, e.g., from Housing and Urban Development, Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health, Department of Human Services, and Department of Labor.

• Establish well-defined processes, roles, and responsibilities for pursuing non-CMAQ funding.

• Partner with Arlington Economic Development (AED) and workforce development programs to leverage workforce funding to help get people to worksites and training programs.

• Partner with AED and other tourism and entertainment partners for funding and leverage Commuter Store staff to provide visitor and tourist information.

• Restructure and organize the performance data that ACCS collects, how it is collected, by whom it is collected, and how it will be cleaned, stored, reported, and tracked.

  ─ Include working sessions with other parts of Arlington's Department of Environmental Services to address potential data overlaps.

• Collect and analyze performance data from across sources and visualize through internal and external dashboards that enable stakeholders to obtain information for their needs and allow ACCS to monitor progress and make adjustments more easily.

• Develop a self-service data portal to allow users to search the program's public-facing data (such as data from ACCS-commissioned studies) or send requests for more specific information.

• Provide regular, audience-tailored reporting on performance metrics to partners, County leadership, etc. and an annual graphical report for partners, public, and elected officials.

  ─ Consider separate reports targeted at employers, travelers, etc. to acknowledge their work and encourage future participation.

• Review and potentially update how program impacts are calculated and communicated.

• Review performance metrics regularly to proactively identify areas for improvement and change.

• Establish targets for each metric to easily see if performance is on track.

Continued Services

Recommended New, Enhanced, and Modified Services

• Work with developers during the construction phase of site plans to ensure implementation of required TDM infrastructure and services.

• Monitor developments' implementation of their TDM programs to ensure they meet their commitments on an annual basis.

• Monitor the transportation performance of Site Plan buildings.

• Work with the Department of Community Planning, Housing, and Development (CPHD) to regularly review and update TDM developer site plan requirements to keep them current, relevant, and implementable.

• Streamline client outreach responsibilities between business-to-business outreach staff and TDM for Site Plans staff and improve information sharing between the two programs.

• Streamline TDM financial contributions process between County finance staff and Site Plans.

Continued Services

Recommended New, Enhanced, and Modified Services

• • Arlington Transit

    ─ Provide a call-center for customers to obtain information about and provide comments and complaints for ART.

    ─ Design, update, and print ART schedules.

    ─ Manage ART website and social media.

    ─ Place and maintain all ART transit signage.

    ─ Conduct marketing and outreach for new ART routes and route changes.

    ─ Conduct marketing and outreach for iRide Student SmarTrip card.

  • Capital Bikeshare

    • ─ Oversee County's contract with the Capital Bikeshare vendor.

      ─ Assist with planning and management of the operation of Arlington's portion of Capital Bikeshare, including purchase, installation, resizing, and relocation of stations and overseeing maintenance needs.

      ─ Regularly update Capital Bikeshare Transit Development Plan.

      ─ Promote Capital Bikeshare for All and Community Partners Program.

      Shared Micromobility Devices permit program

      ─ Review operator permit applications.

      ─ Oversee deployment and work with operators on ordinance compliance.

      Provide and maintain real-time transit displays in buildings throughout the county.

• Build connections between Arlington Transit, ACCS, and respective contractors to ensure that travel options are cross promoted through all organizational materials.

• Investigate adding accessibility functions to real-time transit screens in County buildings.

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Recurring Trips

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Travelers with recurring trips to/from Large Generators/Attractors in Arlington

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- Commuters to large employers in Arlington

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- Low-wage workers at large employers in Arlington

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- Multifamily housing residents

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Travelers with recurring trips into or out of Arlington

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- Resident commuters to other NoVA jurisdictions

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- Resident commuters to DC, Montgomery County, and Prince George's County

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Travelers with recurring trips during second or third shift, or on weekends

Non-Recurring Trips

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Arlington residents' individual trips within Arlington

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Arlington residents traveling to elsewhere in the region, and people from elsewhere in the region traveling to Arlington

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Multifamily housing residents in Arlington Equity Emphasis Areas

M = Multiple Audiences

E = Employer

C = Commercial

R = Residential

H = Hotels

S = Schools