Lake County, OH –  Laketran received three first place awards in the 2017 American Public Transportation Association (APTA) AdWheel Awards that honors APTA’s members for excellence in communications and marketing efforts. Laketran’s “Adventures in Commuting” campaign won first place in the Best Comprehensive Campaign to Increase Ridership or Sales category. “Adventures in Commuting” is a mixed media campaign that included digital, print, radio, and Facebook ads geo-targeted to people commuting from Lake County to Cleveland.

Laketran also won first place in the Best Print Media to Increase Ridership or Sales category for their Park-n-Ride Next Exit billboard and Best Educational Print Media for the Real-Time Rider Tools door-hanger rack card.

Laketran used the new electronic billboard, located about a half mile east of the Lloyd Road exit on SR 2, to encourage drivers commuting into Cleveland to try Laketran’s Wickliffe Park-n-Ride.  Laketran placed the Park-n-Ride Next Exit billboard on August 22, 2016 and continues to run it periodically. The September ridership for Route 12, the route that operates out of the Wickliffe Park-n-Ride, grew 45% within one month of the billboard placement and ended 2016 with a 36% ridership increase over 2015.

After installing GPS-enabled, automatic vehicle locators on the bus fleet, in June 2016 Laketran launched Rider Tools that offers advanced trip planning with Google Transit and a real-time interactive map to track your bus or locate your bus stop online at laketran.com. The new Rider Tools also offers a Next Bus Departure texting option so riders can text a code to find out when the next bus will depart their bus stop. Laketran was awarded first place in Best Educational Print Media for a door-hanger rack card designed to educate riders to use Laketran’s new Real-Time Rider Tools. Laketran placed door hangers on the grip bars in all Laketran’s Local Routes and Park-n-Ride buses to improve the passenger’s awareness of how to use new this new technology to make riding Laketran even easier.

Laketran’s Director of Marketing & Communications Julia Schick accepted the awards on behalf of the agency.

“Two of our priorities as an agency are to continue to improve the rider experience and educate Lake County residents about the services we offer,” Schick explained. “We are proud of the way that we have continuously met these goals and we are honored to be acknowledged for our creativity, messaging and hard work.”

Schick acknowledged Willoughby-based design firm, Blackbird Interactive, for creative talents that designed the Rider Tools and Adventures in Commuting campaigns.

“While Lake County may be small, we have great community of designers and publishers that help us create and display our communications,” shared Schick.  “We are proud to share our achievements with Blackbird and local publications, radio stations and media outlets that help us get our message out.”

“This recognition is a compliment from our industry peers at the national level,” said board president Brian Falkowski. “I am very proud of our talented marketing team and how they creatively make sure our customers and Lake County residents know how we are here to serve the community.”