Business View Magazine | April 2020

173 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE APRIL 2020 So, there are a lot of opportunities to be a part of our future. For our operations department in particular, the day-to-day work flow is ever- changing, so it is always interesting. People who want to help and serve people are drawn to being part of our team.” BVM: How do you market your services to the community? Peters: “We utilize several channels to market. We work with our local newspaper quite a bit. We have also begun using social media in the last six months. We use our trolley branding as a marketing technique with local tourism. This pairs well with the fact that Walla Walla has an award- winning downtown that has a similar historic vibe to it. We leverage excellent videography opportunities for such a small area through a local marketing firm. We also participate in community events to raise awareness and teach/train about our services. Historically, we have been fare-free in the summer; this not only allows us to increase our visibility, but it enables us to leverage the small loss in fares for three months against increased ridership. By doing this we are also able to reach ridership benchmarks set in the Small Transit Intensive Cities (STIC) program, which in turn makes us eligible for significantly more funding than the fares we would have made during the summer.” BVM: What are some of your plans for the system, going forward? Peters: “Over the next year, we will be making several investments in our CNG system that will increase safety and extend the longevity of our infrastructure and thus our Dial-a-Ride fleet. We are also hoping to transition to a fully electric trolley fleet for Fixed Route. We currently have two electric trolleys in service and before the end of 2020, we will have a total of four electric trolleys on the road. Obviously, battery electric buses take quite a bit of money, and so that will be phased in over time as the current diesel VALLEY TRANS I T