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when knowledge of product-relevant values, attitudes, and Chapter 2 of the Guidebook begins with a summary of the
preferences of customers within and across markets is market research practices that are commonly employed in
gained, and that knowledge is used to guide product devel- the transit industry. The chapter continues with a descrip-
opment and delivery. The understanding becomes complete tion of data that are recovered by the technologies of inter-
when evidence shows that products have penetrated markets est in this study. The chapter concludes with a discussion of
to their maximum potential. both the advantages and the limitations that should be
Without the feedback information obtained from moni- recognized in efforts to relate data and information from
toring and evaluation, it is hard to know whether marketing traditional market research applications and data from ITS
action plans have been successful or whether market research technologies.
has had any consequence. In such an environment, the legit- Chapter 3 of the Guidebook presents an inventory of
imacy of market research cannot be firmly established. Under possible uses of ITS data in market research applications. The
these conditions, there is a strong tendency for marketing to applications are separated into two general categories. The
become isolated within the agency (Elmore-Yalch 1998b). first, defined as service delivery monitoring, presents applica-
Divorced from the important service delivery function, mar- tions in which ITS data are used to complement traditional
keting then loses its strategic connection to the agency's prin- practices. The second category covers leveraging opportuni-
cipal product. ties, where ITS data are used in direct conjunction with
The promise of ITS data lies in its potential to ultimately traditional market research applications.
raise the stature of transit marketing and market research pro- Successful experiences linking ITS data with market research
grams to a level that is comparable to what exists in other in- practices in the transit industry are commonly grounded in
dustries. Its direct contribution to market research practices four key dimensions. First, an enterprise data system must be
and its contribution to monitoring and evaluating service de- in place that is capable of processing, integrating, and storing
livery reinforce elements of the integrated marketing system ITS data, allowing for easy accessibility. Second, analysis and
that have been underdeveloped or missing altogether in many reporting tools that draw on ITS data must be available to mar-
transit agencies. ket researchers. Third, the data management and market re-
The transit industry's transition to greater utilization of search enterprises must be adequately staffed with people pos-
ITS data for market research has not been seamless nor with- sessing the skills needed to perform in an advanced data
out challenges. Properties have encountered system design, environment. Fourth, because ITS data are used agency-wide,
data management, and human resource issues in their efforts coordination across agency functions has become more im-
to fold ITS data into their market research and other func- portant. Both staffing and coordination needs can be hard
tions (FTA 2005; ITS Joint Program Office 1999a, 1999b, 2000, to achieve without management support. These subjects are
and 2001; TCRP 2001). Thanks largely to the growing ex- covered in Chapter 4.
change of information and experiences--both formally and The transit industry's progress toward the goal of gaining
informally organized--lessons are being learned at each stage a better understanding of its customers and markets depends
of the ITS life cycle and the magnitude of many of the chal- on its ability to learn from its experiences. Chapter 5 sum-
lenges encountered earlier is diminishing. marizes issues that have been commonly encountered in the
industry's transition to using ITS data for market research.
The nearly 20-year experience of the transit industry with
What the Guidebook Covers
advanced technologies has yielded many lessons that proper-
This Guidebook will show transit market researchers how ties newly moving into the ITS arena or upgrading existing
ITS data can be used to support their efforts to gain a better systems would benefit from knowing.
understanding of customers and their travel on the system. A substantial amount of the information reported in this
In some applications, ITS offers a superior and cost-effective Guidebook was obtained from case studies of three
substitute to data that market research staff have traditionally properties--the CTA, City of Madison Metro Transit, and
collected manually to monitor customer activity. In other TriMet. These case studies are appended to the Guidebook (Ap-
more advanced market research applications that seek to gain pendices A, B, and C, respectively). The case studies provide
an understanding of customers' attitudes, preferences, and worthy reading independent of the main text in that they pres-
behavior, ITS data can be used to leverage the practices that ent coherent stories that illustrate how each property achieved
have traditionally been used to recover information. success in drawing ITS data into its market research practices.
