Description
This paper focuses on marketing for passenger transport based on the research concerned with urban sustainable development and mobility issues and it is oriented to the conceptual discussion of Relationship Marketing to be adopted in transport policy in consonance of another productive sectors.
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TRANSPORT SERVICE QUALITY AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
THROUGH THE RELATIONSHIP MARKETING
Bodmer, Milena, D.Sc.
[email protected]
Martins, Jorge Antônio, D.Sc.
[email protected]
Phone: 55 – 21 - 25628188
Lecturers at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Summary
This paper focuses on marketing for passenger transport based on the research concerned with urban sustainable development and
mobility issues and it is oriented to the conceptual discussion of Relationship Marketing to be adopted in transport policy in
consonance of another productive sectors. At first, there are made comments on reasons for development of marketing strategies
applications, necessary all over the world. Although some differences between the developed and developing countries are picked
out, it becomes evident that new approach for marketing passenger transport is necessary and quite urgent, giving that it should be
oriented not only to the market behavior, but also it should involve different actors being called to social accountability. A short
review of state-of-the-art and state-of-the-practice in transport marketing, analyzing some critical aspects inherited to the transit
service marketing, provides also comments on outstanding importance of social and economic activities as determinants for travel
needs and travel behavior. In this context it is brought up a concept of Relationship Marketing, conceived from service marketing
field. The main characteristics of this concept consist in pro-active behavior of different, public and private actors, including
consumers, local communities, public agencies, transit operators, and non transport businesses. This kind of co-marketing, based on
partnership, results in provision of service packages, comprising basic, facilitating, and supporting services, adapted to the client-
citizens’ needs, trying to retain them on transit. This approach, build on spatial activities’ network partnership, seems to have a good
potential for urban management applications. There is also commented an Integrated Mobility Management Model based on
Relationship Marketing, which tripartite framework should articulate management of activities production and accessibility production,
both oriented to the client-citizens consumption and welfare.
1. INTRODUCTION
During the last decades, significant efforts have been made to promote and transform public transport
alternatives in more attractive for citizens in urban areas on over the world. One can observe that success
of these efforts has been demonstrating lot of limitations, and it is also unsatisfactory. Desirable results
should represent high quality of public transport services leading to the demand increase, consumers’
satisfaction and consequently their retention. The importance of marketing role, in this kind of endeavor,
should be judged as obvious.
The main focus of this work is on Marketing for public transport based on the research results of Mobile
Group concerned with urban sustainable development and mobility issues. The research is developed
using the concept of Integrated Mobility Management (IMM), comprising conception, application, and
monitoring of integrated models of production and management of transport and land-use (commercial,
service and leisure activities) searching for the sustainable regional-urban development, focusing on the
business environment, with purpose to match financial and economical goals of companies and social
aims of public interests (companies with social, ethic, and environmental responsibilities). Despite the
large scope of issues involving sustainable development and sustainable transport, which are practically
at the beginning of investigation, approach adopted here has been developed with the goal to enhance of
greening transport, and to switch car trips to the transit alternatives.
Some aspects of this concept were presented by MARTINS & BODMER (2000), and later demonstrated
its practical implications by BODMER, MARTINS et all (2001,2002).
This approach assumes an effective integration between land-use and transportation policies, enlarging
this way a spectrum of possibilities for economic and social development and mobility management.
There are considered assumptions that transport represents services provided for derived demand (from
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different activities), then should not be treated solely but associated to the activities, whose represent the
reasons for trips and movements. This means that the relationship between mobility, accessibility, and
spatial dynamics, still ignored by public authorities, is extremely important, and needs to be urgently
considered. PRIEMUS, NIJKAMP & BANISTER (2001) remember how spatial planning, real estate
development, infrastructure planning and transport policy have to be integrated within and between public
bodies, and also public-partnerships must be welcomed to promote synergy between mobility and spatial
dynamics. These authors confirm as spatial dynamics are often associated with the development of
physical and social networks in which the nodes profit from agglomeration advantages and scale effects.
They also comment the dominant tendency of suburbanization around cities, unable to move to
sustainability, because of stimulating car traffic and mobility.
From the managerial point of view, the main contribution of this work is the proposal of treatment,
integrating several sectors of urban economy, what means that, the price, quantity and quality of any
urban activity could be influenced by mobility management, using for it, what could be called, Relationship
Marketing.
The main idea presented by BODMER & MARTINS (2001) is a provision of transport attending an
activities’ network, which relies on sharing the accountability with different economic actors, whose action
together produces a synergy, necessary to revitalize the local community life. These actors represent the
community on one side, and the producers on another. The former are citizens acting individually or in
organized form, latest are these representing urban activities’ production (retail, services, leisure and
dwellings), land capital, and real-estate capital on one hand, and these representing providers of
accessibility to the urban activities, such as transit operators, technology, equipment, energy and
infrastructure providers and also financial capital needed for investments.
Before introducing this concept, there is important to review some strategies adopted by transit agencies
and industry in general, which have established a significant linkage with mobility management.
2. MOBILITY MANAGEMENT AND MARKETING STRATEGIES
The following appreciation will concentrate on contemporary problems, although it is recognized that
application of marketing strategies has been taken place in public transport management since the
eighties of the last century.
Many public transport companies, despite of operating below regulatory protections, formally avoiding
entry of new operators into the market, have been impacted by pos-industrial era, which has been
transforming not only daily life of any citizens, but also a whole society. One can recognize that the
phenomenon of the complexity, and inter-connectivity between different sectors of economy conduce any
system into the more unpredictable and more vulnerable situation and, consequently, to the urgent needs
of adaptation.
In the developed countries the significant increase of car ownership as a result of the well being, and
consequently intensive car use, originally interpreted as possibility of providing higher mobility for the
people living in the cities, has been transformed gradually in the main element causing negative
environmental impacts and lowering quality of life for them.
Various experiences everywhere have been giving emphasis on the local policy confined within transport
sector, usually oriented to the reduction of car-use, through the Demand Management or Mobility
Management Programs. These, more diffused in North America or in Europe, respectively, have been
taking advantage of marketing, information diffusion, communication, and education with the main
purpose to achieve modal split more favorable for greening transport (walking, cycling, and transit use).
Transport agencies and operators have been experiencing some partnerships with productive sector
(employers) with respect to providing to their employees the healthier transport alternatives with an appeal
to the higher quality of life but there has been little attention given to the integrated urban service
management.
During the last decade, with respect to marketing many of experimental work were carried out. In the
American Continent there are registered various individual strategies, mainly oriented to the accessibility
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projects, community events, cooperative, seasonal and image promotions, internal promotions,
introduction of new service or rider inducements (see examples in: TRB,1999 and TCRP, 2000). In
European context, outstanding experiences are related by UITP (1998), when forty operators in Public
Transport have shown that effective marketing in Public Transport can increase the level of ridership.
There are many works trying to explain and evaluate the adopted demand and mobility management
policies (Fergusson,1999, Litman, 2000, Kenwothy, 2002). One of the relevant initiatives represents
MOMENTUM project, European combined research in the urban transport area, which stated early 1996.
Since then, this project has been producing inventory of the State-of-the-Art of mobility management
throughout Europe and even other parts of the world, and it has been stimulating practices with respect to
developing tools, carrying out many case studies, and creating a number of mobility centers. After the
completion of the MOMENTUM project and consequently disseminating mobility management strategies,
as for example MOSAIC consortium (2000), and later , established experience of MOST (2002) – starting
in 2000, it should be recognized that mobility management is identified as a key measure to deliver a
more sustainable environment.
There are some relevant contributions from Litman (1999a), who suggests that sustainable development
requires significant changes in our transportation system to increase economic efficiency, equity, and
environmental security. This cannot be achieved simply by changing vehicle designs or improving traffic
flow. It requires changing the way transportation professionals approach problems, and how individuals
behaves as citizens and consumers. He concludes then, other stakeholders – local officials, businesses,
neighborhoods, public health advocates, social equity activists, and environmentalists – also have
reasons to support sustainable transportations strategies. There are opportunities to develop coalitions to
achieve sustainable transportation objectives. The same author (1999b) discusses implications on
sustainability criteria, such as efficiency, equity, environmental impacts, and land use patterns,
incorporating them in his costs analysis. Litman and Burwell (2003) call attention to the fact that many
approaches consider sustainability as a narrow set of individual problems addressed in existing
transportation planning in which experts rank problems and solutions. They proposed that so called
comprehensive perspective, which assumes a broad set of integrated problems, leads to a combination of
different approaches, including improved travel choices, pricing, road design incentives to encourage
more efficient travel choices, land use pattern that reduce the need to travel and support alternative
modes, and technical improvements.
Despite of many efforts, the car use and urban sprawl continue to rise in many countries, and urban road
traffic has not reduced. Thus, although the availability of public transport does appear to be necessary
incentive to discourage the use of the automobile, it is evidently not enough (Kaufman, 2000). Kaufman
mentions a typical example: Promoting the use of public transport by improving it, whilst simultaneously
constructing new car parks for commuters in the city centre, is mutually incompatible. Similarly, improving
public transport with a view to increasing usage, whilst not encouraging the simultaneous integration of
new places of employment within the public transport infrastructure network, will cancel each other out.
This has implications for local and national government action in the sphere of land use policy and
particularly the cohesion between urban development and public transport.
In this context, it is important to recall Bratzell´s comments (1999), whose study focuses on goals and
strategies of political actors, the structure of car-oriented versus environmentally oriented interests in the
policy arena and the impact of institutional arrangements for sustainable urban transport policies. He
examines some cases with relatively successful policies, and concludes that the main obstacles for
implementing more sustainable urban transport policies can be found in the political process, where the
popular indicatives might have fundamental importance.
In the developing countries, despite of lower car ownership figures, and higher public transport share, one
can observe gradual degradation of whole transportation system, because of limited investments in the
transport infrastructure. Gakenheimer (1999) mentions some specific issues affecting levels of mobility in
developing countries. One can emphasize the rapid pace of motorization, conditions of local demand that
far exceed the capacity of facilities, the incompatibility of urban structure with increased motorization, a
stronger transport-land use relationship than in developed countries, lack of adequate road maintenance
and limited agreement among responsible officials as to appropriate forms of approach the problem.
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Focusing on Brazilian example, BODMER & PORTO (2000) have pointed out several factors to be
considered as relevant for performance of urban public transport, which has been run basically by buses,
operated by private concession, considering only marginal participation of train and metro alternatives.
The main factors being mentioned and analyzed by authors are significant increase of car use and bus
fleet circulation, emergence of informal van transport and its vertiginous expansion, and low investments
in mass transit, including its infrastructure - on the supply side, and land-use concentration, several
changes in demographics, employment distribution and also transformations in life style – on the demand
side. Combination of these factors has been also causing significant changes with respect to
transportation needs. It seems to be evident that low quality of transit does not have a chance to satisfy a
bundle of heterogeneous desires of consumers, claiming for higher effectiveness and quality in transport
system. The transport scenery in capital cities in Brazil, as an example, is characterized by transit decline,
traffic jumps, low traffic and personal safety, and air pollution.
During the last decade, bus transit has been losing a part of its demand, which has been migrating to the
car or to the informal transport provided mainly by van operators. There is also a part of population, which
does not travel by transit any more.
It could be mentioned an example of São Paulo city, where the demand for public transport has been
dropping down during the last five years, with figures showing 43% decrease. Considering another
example, city of Rio de Janeiro, despite of higher population dependence on transit, there is also
registered decline, representing 16% during the same period of time (BODMER & MARTINS, 2002). The
most significant reduction in bus transit passengers has occurred since 1999 as a consequence of
economic stagnation and also of van proliferation and car increased use.
With regard to other capital cities, one can observe that the transit demand has dropped from
approximately 7,6 billion passengers to 5,7 passengers per year, representing 25% of decrease
(BODMER & MARTINS, 2002). In spite of in a half of the capital cities the transit demand tends to be
stable, in others, mainly of higher population, despite of efforts trying to recover demand loses, transit
passengers numbers continue with decreasing tendency.
Although the average income of population has been increasing during last years, there is also observed
an increase in unemployment (with rate raising from 4,7 in 1995 to 7,5 in 1999; recent statistics show the
highest rate of 18 % in São Paulo in 2003), highly correlated to the movement of urban population. On
the other hand, the people remaining in the jobs with increased relative income and having an easier
access to the car tend to be more demanding with respect to the higher standard of transport, switching to
the car or van service (appearing as an informal job opportunity for hundreds of unemployed people),
when it is possible. It is important to remember that private car fleet has been increasing approximately
40% during the last five years. There are also many changes in urban travel patterns associated to the
population activities’ chains.
Local governments, planners, operators, and also many other organizations have been engaged in
formulating policies trying to discourage car use in CBD areas, through the parking policy or using several
traffic calming measures. With respect to informal transport run by vans, there are made efforts to regulate
or restrict the use of them. But, this is important to recall that there is still enough market place for them,
since they have been making a profit and also providing more personalized services.
Private bus transit traditional operators started to improve their services, adopting some marketing
strategies oriented to their consumers. BODMER & RODRIGUES (1999) relate some innovative
experiences introducing improvements on products introduced and diffused by bus companies oriented to
their traditional users.
The production of the small buses (micros) as a response to the competitive market has exploded during
the final nineties. While the urban bus production has dropped from 12,992 vehicles in 1998 to 6,765
vehicles in 2000, the number of micro-vehicles sold to the operators has increased from 1,195 units in
1999 to 3,100 units in 2000, what represents this fleet expansion of 162,8 % (BODMER, MARTINS at al,
2001). The operators are also concerned with some operational measures, such as cost cuttings, process
improvements, people engagement (joint effort with total quality programs) and some of them try to offer
discounts, diffuse information on system supply, among any others. Many of them are trying to identify
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new client segments, providing for them special services with higher standard and also higher fare.
Despite of it, decline of transit passengers still persists.
Transit marketing is based on market knowledge and should be considered as an important instrument for
transit managers and planners, since it is concerned with consumers’ satisfactions and desires, service
profitability, and system sustainability. Considering the extended six p’ marketing mix (see Figure 1)
adopted originally, the operators, since 1998, have been giving the focus on product differentiation, trying
to imitate new van operators through the use of lower capacity vehicles with comfortable seats, air
conditioning etc.
The main characteristic of this effort is that the transport has been treated as a service itself, without
taking into account, what represents the main reason for transportation: social and economic activities,
which take an advantage of transportation services, and are usually aggregated and consolidated in
traffic-generators with high impact on urban environment. That is, because the transport and land-use
should be interactively managed.
3. LAND-USE AND TRANSPORT INTERACTION
Land-use and transportation relationship has an important role in planning and management, because its
existence was always evident in every circumstance. It was already implicitly present, for instance, when
Rio de Janeiro City, from 19th to 20th centuries, expanded itself towards the south zone. The company
providing tram services, further than to produce only transport service, promoted urban expansion, once
the tram provided localization economies to that “new” space. The concept of IMM adopted here could
not dissociate transport from urban and regional development policies.
In spite of the approaches adopted, inserted within the last economic cycle – with Keynesian inspiration —
, and applied to attending the road-traffic industrial logic tried to establish a strong relationship between
transport and land-use, in fact, transport and circulation plans ware mainly not connected to urban
development goals, but are reduced to mere proposals with functionalist and autonomous character
(transport understand and treated as the end itself).
Once the logic of road-traffic policy leads to travel freedom (car and bus allow higher mobility — door-to-
door movement), the use of road mode resulted to become itself hegemonic in urban planning. Since the
public agencies invest only in the infrastructure, the real-state capital falls into the parking cost for private
cars, and passenger transport companies spend resources on transit fleet.
The participation of those agents in that road-traffic policy resulted also in causing split between land-use
and transport policies. This means, the connection between land-use and transport policies was reduced
to only duty to provide parking as defined by land use and occupation’s law for new buildings, increasing
value of use, in the urban space, for car. Even the proposals conducting to traffic hierarchy in municipal
master plans are not coherent with policy of urban activity localization.
In the Brazilian academic community, during the early 90’s, urban infrastructure, particularly that one of
transport, comes into the light as a source of new business opportunities with social responsibility. An
improved concept of so called joint development (U. S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, 2000),
which applies to reinforcing the link between transit and the community that it serves, is reexamined by
Mobile Group.
With the privatization of the economy, the need for new urban space production and management models
is emphasized to achieve financial and environmental sustainability. The logic of urban production in new
economic cycle — which has already started – is based on transport multi-modality (with definition of
market niches), the integrated urban logistics’ activities (in the sphere of the capital production: work and
circulation; and in the sphere of social reproduction: leisure, residential settlements and education),
instead of based on the exclusive dependence of a sole transport technology.
There are signs that the real-state capital starts to perceive that expansion of infrastructure for the car with
the same intensity as the increase of demand can not be financially sustainable, because of the high costs
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to mitigate negative externalities (social, immobilization and environmental costs). With the concession of
mass transport infrastructure to private initiative, new projects appear and treat transport integrated to the
land-use activities. If, on the one hand, financial capital seems to draw its attention to new models of land
transformation, on the other hand, the increase of the number of civil inquiries in Rio de Janeiro in last
years reveals also the development of social consciousness in relation to the urban diseconomies and
need for new transport management models.
This is a trend that cannot be ignored by the building business, which has been questioned during last
years in relation to the environmental impacts, mainly these caused by traffic-generators on circulation.
Once the urban space is limited, traffic-generators, such as shopping centers, hotels, hospitals, schools,
and administrative buildings for instance, are not able to attend the demand increase. The dilemma for
their administration with respect to impacts on the economy of the city is how to enlarge the space
available between two options: for their core activity or for parking. After all, it is observed, taking into
account the Brazilian reality, that of shopping centers, for example, require about 40% of shopping area
for parking. Once the productivity of the parking is significantly lower than that one of area designed for
shopping, many times the subtraction of number of garage locations in benefit of commercial area is
considered as a better alternative to satisfy the political pressure for the establishments’ expansion. In this
case, it is verified that, in spite of the increase of the number of cars attracted, the only compromise with
the attainment of immediate profits prevails and aggravates the parking deficit. On the other hand, the
consequences of the troubles provoked, in short-term, in the neighborhood go against the transport-
generators interests. When this occurs, it is evident that the solution of the access problem is connected
to the development of new forms of accessibility and mobility management.
4. NEW CONCEPTS FOR URBAN PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
Nowadays, within unstable economic scenery, the organizations are exposed to the market changes and
many social requirements. In this context, it is necessary to considerer strategic sustainable focus and a
long-term flexibility through the expansion of simple products-services, defined by companies’ core
competencies (or activities). Thus, the theoretical approach adopted here is systemic, that means, it
considers the economic activity configured in network.
Urban activities separately are considered as core activities to whose the transport service is integrated.
Since the transport services aggregate value to the core activities of the urban business (commerce and
services, leisure and tourism), they may effectively aggregate value of use and redefine products and
services differentiated in the city, so making more closed to the social and economical interests.
Following this trend, Kotler (1999) emphasizes how the marketing professionals do not prepare only
products, but packages of benefits that should have not only purchase value, but also value of use. Thus,
in any kind of activity it could be find the need for transformation of Central Product-Service into a
Product-Service Package. This could incorporate a set of services that can be more attractive and able to
attend the consumers’ expectations. For this definitions should be considered significant contribution of
GRÖNROOS (1999), who brought into the light a concept of amplified supply of services, which
comprises core services, facilitators and peripheral services.
The Mobile Group’s proposal for urban development policies sustained by new transport services
assumes the concept of Product-Service Package within IMM. In this case, in the private sphere of
decision-making, both location of urban economic activities and transport system are treated jointly as an
urban logistic chain. In order to incorporate transport to the core activities of the real state urban
entrepreneurs and developers (shopping, leisure, business, etc.), the supply chain has to be managed
strategically and integrated with profitable urban activities gaining this way competitive advantage.
By using the concept of Product-Service Package, transport can be not only a part of commercial Product-
Services, but also could work as a consumption facilitator, stimulating the communities loyalty to their
local business, and at the same time integrating communities and urban activities in a network. The idea
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is to assure, through the transport services integrated to transit-generators, economies of localization and
agglomeration for two types of urban situation:
o Urban expansion zones as strategy to stimulate the attraction of new opportunities of
employment, leisure and consumption, better distributing them equitably in the urban
space, and
o Existing areas that already reveal negative externalities (immobilization cost, pollution,
etc.). In this case, one deals to incorporate urban environmental quality, by defining new
plans of circulation and services of transport integrated to urban projects (urban design,
traffic calming, demand and mobility management).
The main idea of this approach is to provide a proper transport system to business networks, engaging
the actors, whose take a part of transport production and urban activities (real-state building, commerce,
services and leisure). Thus, one expects to foster the synergy of the logistic chain of transport-land use
with the purpose of communities’ revitalization (see Figure 2).
The transport will be made available to the communities as a complementary service to the most frequent
activities and perceived as a free, since it is designed within a package of shopping or service benefits for
clients associated to the network of activities whose expectancy is to get some privileges. The adoption of
this option characterizes a relatively advanced stage of creating the client’s loyalty, which Kotler (1999)
calls “associated customer”.
Thus, a Product-Service Package model is defined, which, besides the traditional offers of urban activities,
provides accessibility through the collective or greening transport for the special clients (immediate
influence area’s community) associated to a benefits Program. That Program enables their providers to
make relationship with clients (local communities) closer, offer the rewards for remaining loyalty to urban
activities partners network. As consumption in network shops and the preference for collective transport is
going to increase, the associated clients, holders of affinity cards, receive a series of benefits, from whose
could be pointed out the discounts on the purchase and special attendance in shops adhering to the
Program. On the other hand, the companies involved in this Program have the opportunity to customize
the relationship by learning about the specific characteristics and requirements of consumers, and then
use these data for tailoring the services according to their needs and preferential habits.
This approach, sustained on the strategy of considering the accessibility to the urban activities as
aggregated value to its central business, enables to conjugate the interests of several agents
(entrepreneurs and local management body) that establish partnerships and develop laboratories of urban
development policies comprising whole production cycle: planning, implementation and monitoring of the
Product-Service Package concept. With the Mobile support, an emphasis is given on Relationship
Marketing and urban mobility management research referring to this concept.
5. PARTNERSHIPS’ MANAGEMENT & AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
The Product-Service Package here proposed requires a new form of business management, since it
implies in the introduction of additional competencies to those ones developed up to then by urban
activities’ firms, on one hand, and transport companies, on the other hand. A new organizational
orientation makes part also of the proposed strategy, which means to redefine its social role and establish
innovative relationship between the productive sector, the clients and the society.
This renewal comprises the composition of cooperative network that strengthens all of the participants to
face competition and to develop a capacity of adaptation to changing social, economical and cultural
scenarios. Nowadays, constitution of joint-venture networks is recognized as a faster, more intelligent and
flexible method to follow and be responsive to the changes in habits and life styles of different segments
of the society and to create a real advantage in any business.
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Joint-venture enables, first of all, flexibility in implementation of new ideas which could not be
accomplished by organizations individually and that, through the joint action of partners, represent lower
costs, more significant impacts on the society and maintenance of position or leadership in the market.
Thus, the traditional role of the shopping center, for instance, which allows concentrated sales of goods
and services should be transformed in an integrating role of business, not yet thought, to increase the
quality of life for the population and, consequently, rise the attractiveness of the own shopping center for
its clients.
It could also be stressed that several services conceived within such environment could not be produced
by a sole organization, but it is recommended to outsource them. Thus, it is attenuated the distance
among several sectors (sales, delivery services, transport, communications, entertainment, tourism, etc)
that become working within alliance. Many authors writing on contemporary management are also
pointing out that the best business performance in the present world are those ones showing capacity to
coordinate service activities, suppliers networks, and inter-sector relationships.
A proposed managerial model, based on strategic partnerships and relationship marketing is presented in
Figure 3. The main agents involved in this model are:
o Client-citizen (requiring an active consumer, participating in the process of production and
consumption of urban private and public services), and through this taking a part of urban
policy formulation;
o Production agents of urban activities and accessibility (providers of additional value
through the services efficiently produced and sold in a differentiated way) and
o Managerial entity (board or agency centered in the social, economical and environmental
equity, being in charge of the management, planning and development of whole IMM).
The proposed model is characterized by an effective technical and social integration among the agents
involved concerning the formatting of details of the Product-Service Package, processes, technologies in
use and the managerial information flow, aiming to attain a joint optimization and a work system able to
respond to the requirements from the client and environment. The structure, as shown in Figure 3 is
tripartite: Management, Consumption and Production.
Concerning to Management sphere, the joint enterprises shall constitute a director board, with advising of
Research & Development group, able to assure the implementation and operation of the IMM according to
the strategic planning and schedule of activities. In spite of the decision units correspond to the partners’
entities and their autonomy has to be preserved, a coordination to attain the joint objectives has to be
established.
In the Production of Activities sphere, the partner-enterprises promote operational conditions to assure
inter-sector exchange and information flow in function of their specific interests (for instance, advertising
campaigns, strategies of sales, etc.).
Finally, in the Production of Accessibility (Transport Service) sphere, the outsourcing reaches to
incorporate specific know-how and necessary to meet the needs of final consumer, without being
required any significant changes in the logistic chain of each enterprise partner.
The model here presented comprises constitution of urban activities network, which could be understand
as an organizational network able to achieve, through the integration, competitive advantage, efficiency,
effectiveness and equity. It should be stressed that, exactly isolated posture of each organization leads to
degradation of cities.
It is important to emphasize that the strategies here proposed aim to support the urban development with
social and environmental responsibility. The main idea is to transform an image of big traffic generators
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(where the activities are concentrated), usually impacting negatively local community, in undertakings
promoting and levering socio-spatial integration. This way organizations involved in this process assumes
their social responsibility and become contributors for community livable access to the urban opportunities
(work, leisure, shopping etc).
This model was developed for a case of shopping center located at the central area of City of Rio de
Janeiro and, presently, and its full version implementation still depends on further negotiation with the
main partners. More information on this experience provides Martins et al (2002b).
The design of the service for its clients has taken into account the consumer residential location, their
income and also the consumption preferences. There was carried out the market research, which has
been used to identify the target group of consumers, representing 8% of the shopping total demand and
which travel there usually by car at minimum twice a week, and living at maximum 2km from shopping
center, distance where 40% of all its consumers are located.
There are also located dozens of potential partners offering goods and services, which could be
considered as complementary and not competitive to the shopping center activities, such as
supermarkets, schools, hospitals headquarters of many companies, banks, underground stations among
the others. The proposal of organizational joint-venture architecture could be seen on Figure 4, where can
be perceived different role of each participant, documented in more details by Martins et al (2002b).
The product-service package comprises a loyalty program oriented to the frequent transit users, whose
gain several advantages on shopping and leisure activities, when leave their cars at home. The shopping
and other complementary partners should develop learning relationship strategies, allowing them to
customize products and services and build a close relationship. This also relies on the information
technology, which provides inter-connection within the partnership network and long-term information on
consumers’ behavior.
There were also recommended transit services for employees, for a local community which claims the
impacts of shopping center activities and should be compensated, transit service for lunch-time and
happy-hours for student and employees at the University, and also integrated service for hotels and
airports. This way the shopping center should be able to achieve not only significant advantage above any
other commercial activity, but also, if services for clients and employees are considered, it could in two
years withdraw 980 private cars per day from its parking space. This is equivalent to the 10% of its
parking capacity. With respect to the air pollution, Rio Sul Shopping Center withdraws, in the second year,
approximately 38 tons of carbon monoxide per /year from Rio de Janeiro’s atmosphere.
This concept could be applied to promote sustainability of any transit alternative and economic activities
development. During last two years, the Mobile, contracted by National Bank for Economic and Social
Development, has been working on the similar applications for 10 (ten) metropolitan areas in Brazil,
focusing on revitalizing the water urban transport and integrating it within the urban activity system. The
proposals of this study resulting in water transport alternatives articulated within urban activities are
concluded (Martins et al, 2002a, 2003).
6. CONCLUSION
The central idea presented in this work is based on the thesis of IMM, which incorporates the concept of
the Product-Service Package and requires a new management model of interactive nature, built following
the principles of relationship marketing, in which all agents attempt to identify the common interests and
negotiate the divergences. In this model the normative and prescriptive approach is abandoned, prevailing
a dynamics or process, in which the balance is searched and conflicts are mitigated.
Basic premises adopted in this model stress that organizations should strengthen links with the client-
citizen, center on basic competencies and transfer the peripheral activities to other companies, establish
multiple partnerships and collaboration networks, follow the technological evolution and innovate and
acquire a new social, ethic and environmental responsibility.
10
Finally, the adoption of this model in the urban environment enables partners to manage in a sustainable
way not only the micro-accessibility of traffic-generators as well as the macro-accessibility, in which the
private real-state investments are associated to the public urban projects and the enterprises start to
articulate themselves in network fostered by the greening transport, with emphasis on transit. Thus, it is
expected to promote the synergy of the logistic chain of transport-land use that leads to urban
communities’ revitalization.
REFERENCES
BODMER M., RODRIGUES A. (1999). “A Empresa de Transporte de Passageiros Orientada para o Mercado”. In: Congresso
Brasileiro de Transporte e Trânsito 12, ANTP, Pernambuco, pp 1-11.
BODMER, M., PORTO, D. R. M., PORTO Jr, W. (2000). “Marketing no Setor de Transporte Coletivo: Uma proposta estratégica.” In:
Transporte em Tempos de Reforma, Brasília, pp.77-96.
BODMER, M., MARTINS J., PORTO D. R. (2001). All allied to fight public transport´s perceived decline: relationship marketing in
Brazil, in: Anais de 1
st
International Conference on Public Transport Marketing, Barcelona, Espanha, pp 1-12.
BRATZEL S. (1999). “Conditions of success in sustainable urban transport policy – policy change in ´relatively successful´ European
cities”. In: Transport Reviews, Vol. 9, N° 2, pp 177-190.
FERGUSON, E. (1999). “The evolution of travel demand management”. In: Transportation Quarterly 53 (2), pp 57-78.
GAKENHEIMER R. (1999). “Urban mobility in the developing world”, In: Transport Research part A,, Volume 33, pp 671-689.
GRÖNROOS C. (1999). “Relationship Marketing: challenges for the organization”, Journal of Business Research. Vol. 46, pp. 327-
335.
KAUFMANN V. (2000). “Modal practices from the rationales behind Car & Public Transport use to coherent transport policies (case
studies in France & Switzerland)
KENWORTHY, J., LAUBE, F. (2002). “Travel Demand Management: The potential for enhancing urban rail opportunities & reducing
automobile dependence in cities”. In: World Transport Policy & Practice, Volume 8, N° 3,20-36.
KNIGHT V. (2002) “MOST - Mobility Management Strategies for the next decades” European Commission and the “Competition and
sustainable Growth´ Program.
KOTLER PH. (1999). “Marketing para o século XXI – como criar, conquistar e dominar mercados”. Ed. Futura, SP, pp 305.
LITTMAN T.A. (1999a). Reinventing Transportation – Exploring the paradigm Shift need to Reconcile Transportation and
Sustainability Objectives”. Victoria Transport Policy Institute. Canada, pp 1-12.
LITTMAN T.A. (1999b). “Transportation Cost Analysis for Sustainability”, Victoria Transport Policy Institute, Canada, pp 1-16.
LITTMAN T.A. (2000). “An Economic Evaluation of Smart Growth and TDM: Social Welfare and Equity Impacts of Efforts to Reduce
Sprawl and Automobile Dependency”. Victoria Transport Policy Institute, Canada, pp 1-26.
LITTMAN T.A. (2003). “Sustainable Transportation Indicators”. Victoria Transport Policy Institute, Canada, pp 1-14.
LITTMAN T. A., BURWELL D. (2003). “ Issues in Sustainable Transportation”. Victoria Transport Policy Institute, Canada, pp 1-21.
MARTINS J., BODMER M. et al (1999). “Shopping Center Rio Sul”, Final report of project supported by EMBASCENTER.
MARTINS J., BODMER, M. (2000). “New opportunities in Land-use: Transport Business”. In: 21
st
century Transportation, ACT 2000
International Conference, Orlando, pp 1-13.
MARTINS J., BODMER, M. (2002a). “Acqua-mobile – Estudo de viabilidade Técnico-econômica de Serviços de Transporte
Aquaviário em dez Áreas Metropolitanas no Brasil”.Relatório final, Publicação restrita. UFRJ/BNDES, Rio de Janeiro.
MARTINS J., BODMER, M. et al (2002b). “ Gestão da mobilidade para um Pólo gerador de Tráfego”. In: XII Congresso
Panamericano de Ingeneria de Tráfico y Transporte, Quito, Equador, pp 1-12.
MARTINS J., BODMER, M. (2003). “ Multimodality as a strategy for Effectiveness and Competitiveness of Passengers´
Transportation for Metropolis of Rio de Janeiro”. In: 8th Thredbo – International Conference on Competition and Ownership in land
Passenger Transport , Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, pp 1-19.
PORTO, D.R.M. (2001). “Transporte Coletivo na Gestão da Mobilidade: o caso do Shopping Center Rio Sul”, M.Sc. Thesis,
COPPE/UFRJ, pp 170.
PRIEMUS,H.,NIJKAMP,P.,BANISTER,D. (2001). “Mobility and spatial dynamics: an uneasy relationship”, In: Journal of Transport
Geography 9, 167-171.
TCRP (2000). “ Marketing Transit Services to Business”. The National Academy of Sciences, USA.
TRB (1999). “A handbook of proven marketing strategies for public transit”, Report 50, Transit Cooperative research Program,
National Academy Press, 75p.
11
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION (2000) “Joint Development” In: Innovative Financing Techniques.http://www.fta.dot.gov/library/policy/TFT/itt3.htm.
UITP (1998) “Switching to public Transport”. Parts 1 and 2, Socialdata, Brussels.
12
APPENDIX
Real - Estate
Capital
Urban Activities (Retail,
Services, Leisure &
Dwellings)
Land Capital
Financial
Capital
Transit Operators
Technology
Industry
Energy & Equipment
Providers
Provision
of
accessibility
e
Urban
Activities’
production
Figure 2 - Logistic-Chain Synergy for Urban Community Revitalization
Market Research
PLACE
PROCESS PROMOTlON
PRICE PEOPLE
PRODUCT
Figure 1 – Marketing Mix for Transit Service
13
Figure 3 – Integrated Mobility Management Model
CONSUMPTION
Client—Citizen
PRODUCTION OF
ACTIVITIES
Constructors and
Commercial Partners
PRODUCTION OF
ACCESSIBILITY
Operators,
Cooperatives and
Suppliers
MANAGEMENT
Directory Board,
P& D
Relationship Marketing
CLIENT
TECNOLOGY
SUPPLYERS
PLANNING &
DEVELOPMENT GROUP
SHOPPING MERCHANDS &
OTHER PARTNERS
CO-OPERATIVE
OPERATORS
TRANSIT COMPANY
OTHER SUPPLYERS
DIRETORY GROUP
Needs &
Expectations
Consume
Monitoring & Development
Enterpreneurship
evaluation
Fuel and other
supplements
Operational staff
Goals & Strategies
Communication
package
Product-Service
Package
Information &
promotion
Transit operation
Core Produts-
Services
N
S
Equipments
Figure 4 - Organizational Joint-venture Architecture
Evaluation
Information &
promotion
Information &
promotion
Information &
promotion
Information &
promotion
Information &
promotion
doc_709839718.pdf
This paper focuses on marketing for passenger transport based on the research concerned with urban sustainable development and mobility issues and it is oriented to the conceptual discussion of Relationship Marketing to be adopted in transport policy in consonance of another productive sectors.
1
TRANSPORT SERVICE QUALITY AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
THROUGH THE RELATIONSHIP MARKETING
Bodmer, Milena, D.Sc.
[email protected]
Martins, Jorge Antônio, D.Sc.
[email protected]
Phone: 55 – 21 - 25628188
Lecturers at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Summary
This paper focuses on marketing for passenger transport based on the research concerned with urban sustainable development and
mobility issues and it is oriented to the conceptual discussion of Relationship Marketing to be adopted in transport policy in
consonance of another productive sectors. At first, there are made comments on reasons for development of marketing strategies
applications, necessary all over the world. Although some differences between the developed and developing countries are picked
out, it becomes evident that new approach for marketing passenger transport is necessary and quite urgent, giving that it should be
oriented not only to the market behavior, but also it should involve different actors being called to social accountability. A short
review of state-of-the-art and state-of-the-practice in transport marketing, analyzing some critical aspects inherited to the transit
service marketing, provides also comments on outstanding importance of social and economic activities as determinants for travel
needs and travel behavior. In this context it is brought up a concept of Relationship Marketing, conceived from service marketing
field. The main characteristics of this concept consist in pro-active behavior of different, public and private actors, including
consumers, local communities, public agencies, transit operators, and non transport businesses. This kind of co-marketing, based on
partnership, results in provision of service packages, comprising basic, facilitating, and supporting services, adapted to the client-
citizens’ needs, trying to retain them on transit. This approach, build on spatial activities’ network partnership, seems to have a good
potential for urban management applications. There is also commented an Integrated Mobility Management Model based on
Relationship Marketing, which tripartite framework should articulate management of activities production and accessibility production,
both oriented to the client-citizens consumption and welfare.
1. INTRODUCTION
During the last decades, significant efforts have been made to promote and transform public transport
alternatives in more attractive for citizens in urban areas on over the world. One can observe that success
of these efforts has been demonstrating lot of limitations, and it is also unsatisfactory. Desirable results
should represent high quality of public transport services leading to the demand increase, consumers’
satisfaction and consequently their retention. The importance of marketing role, in this kind of endeavor,
should be judged as obvious.
The main focus of this work is on Marketing for public transport based on the research results of Mobile
Group concerned with urban sustainable development and mobility issues. The research is developed
using the concept of Integrated Mobility Management (IMM), comprising conception, application, and
monitoring of integrated models of production and management of transport and land-use (commercial,
service and leisure activities) searching for the sustainable regional-urban development, focusing on the
business environment, with purpose to match financial and economical goals of companies and social
aims of public interests (companies with social, ethic, and environmental responsibilities). Despite the
large scope of issues involving sustainable development and sustainable transport, which are practically
at the beginning of investigation, approach adopted here has been developed with the goal to enhance of
greening transport, and to switch car trips to the transit alternatives.
Some aspects of this concept were presented by MARTINS & BODMER (2000), and later demonstrated
its practical implications by BODMER, MARTINS et all (2001,2002).
This approach assumes an effective integration between land-use and transportation policies, enlarging
this way a spectrum of possibilities for economic and social development and mobility management.
There are considered assumptions that transport represents services provided for derived demand (from
2
different activities), then should not be treated solely but associated to the activities, whose represent the
reasons for trips and movements. This means that the relationship between mobility, accessibility, and
spatial dynamics, still ignored by public authorities, is extremely important, and needs to be urgently
considered. PRIEMUS, NIJKAMP & BANISTER (2001) remember how spatial planning, real estate
development, infrastructure planning and transport policy have to be integrated within and between public
bodies, and also public-partnerships must be welcomed to promote synergy between mobility and spatial
dynamics. These authors confirm as spatial dynamics are often associated with the development of
physical and social networks in which the nodes profit from agglomeration advantages and scale effects.
They also comment the dominant tendency of suburbanization around cities, unable to move to
sustainability, because of stimulating car traffic and mobility.
From the managerial point of view, the main contribution of this work is the proposal of treatment,
integrating several sectors of urban economy, what means that, the price, quantity and quality of any
urban activity could be influenced by mobility management, using for it, what could be called, Relationship
Marketing.
The main idea presented by BODMER & MARTINS (2001) is a provision of transport attending an
activities’ network, which relies on sharing the accountability with different economic actors, whose action
together produces a synergy, necessary to revitalize the local community life. These actors represent the
community on one side, and the producers on another. The former are citizens acting individually or in
organized form, latest are these representing urban activities’ production (retail, services, leisure and
dwellings), land capital, and real-estate capital on one hand, and these representing providers of
accessibility to the urban activities, such as transit operators, technology, equipment, energy and
infrastructure providers and also financial capital needed for investments.
Before introducing this concept, there is important to review some strategies adopted by transit agencies
and industry in general, which have established a significant linkage with mobility management.
2. MOBILITY MANAGEMENT AND MARKETING STRATEGIES
The following appreciation will concentrate on contemporary problems, although it is recognized that
application of marketing strategies has been taken place in public transport management since the
eighties of the last century.
Many public transport companies, despite of operating below regulatory protections, formally avoiding
entry of new operators into the market, have been impacted by pos-industrial era, which has been
transforming not only daily life of any citizens, but also a whole society. One can recognize that the
phenomenon of the complexity, and inter-connectivity between different sectors of economy conduce any
system into the more unpredictable and more vulnerable situation and, consequently, to the urgent needs
of adaptation.
In the developed countries the significant increase of car ownership as a result of the well being, and
consequently intensive car use, originally interpreted as possibility of providing higher mobility for the
people living in the cities, has been transformed gradually in the main element causing negative
environmental impacts and lowering quality of life for them.
Various experiences everywhere have been giving emphasis on the local policy confined within transport
sector, usually oriented to the reduction of car-use, through the Demand Management or Mobility
Management Programs. These, more diffused in North America or in Europe, respectively, have been
taking advantage of marketing, information diffusion, communication, and education with the main
purpose to achieve modal split more favorable for greening transport (walking, cycling, and transit use).
Transport agencies and operators have been experiencing some partnerships with productive sector
(employers) with respect to providing to their employees the healthier transport alternatives with an appeal
to the higher quality of life but there has been little attention given to the integrated urban service
management.
During the last decade, with respect to marketing many of experimental work were carried out. In the
American Continent there are registered various individual strategies, mainly oriented to the accessibility
3
projects, community events, cooperative, seasonal and image promotions, internal promotions,
introduction of new service or rider inducements (see examples in: TRB,1999 and TCRP, 2000). In
European context, outstanding experiences are related by UITP (1998), when forty operators in Public
Transport have shown that effective marketing in Public Transport can increase the level of ridership.
There are many works trying to explain and evaluate the adopted demand and mobility management
policies (Fergusson,1999, Litman, 2000, Kenwothy, 2002). One of the relevant initiatives represents
MOMENTUM project, European combined research in the urban transport area, which stated early 1996.
Since then, this project has been producing inventory of the State-of-the-Art of mobility management
throughout Europe and even other parts of the world, and it has been stimulating practices with respect to
developing tools, carrying out many case studies, and creating a number of mobility centers. After the
completion of the MOMENTUM project and consequently disseminating mobility management strategies,
as for example MOSAIC consortium (2000), and later , established experience of MOST (2002) – starting
in 2000, it should be recognized that mobility management is identified as a key measure to deliver a
more sustainable environment.
There are some relevant contributions from Litman (1999a), who suggests that sustainable development
requires significant changes in our transportation system to increase economic efficiency, equity, and
environmental security. This cannot be achieved simply by changing vehicle designs or improving traffic
flow. It requires changing the way transportation professionals approach problems, and how individuals
behaves as citizens and consumers. He concludes then, other stakeholders – local officials, businesses,
neighborhoods, public health advocates, social equity activists, and environmentalists – also have
reasons to support sustainable transportations strategies. There are opportunities to develop coalitions to
achieve sustainable transportation objectives. The same author (1999b) discusses implications on
sustainability criteria, such as efficiency, equity, environmental impacts, and land use patterns,
incorporating them in his costs analysis. Litman and Burwell (2003) call attention to the fact that many
approaches consider sustainability as a narrow set of individual problems addressed in existing
transportation planning in which experts rank problems and solutions. They proposed that so called
comprehensive perspective, which assumes a broad set of integrated problems, leads to a combination of
different approaches, including improved travel choices, pricing, road design incentives to encourage
more efficient travel choices, land use pattern that reduce the need to travel and support alternative
modes, and technical improvements.
Despite of many efforts, the car use and urban sprawl continue to rise in many countries, and urban road
traffic has not reduced. Thus, although the availability of public transport does appear to be necessary
incentive to discourage the use of the automobile, it is evidently not enough (Kaufman, 2000). Kaufman
mentions a typical example: Promoting the use of public transport by improving it, whilst simultaneously
constructing new car parks for commuters in the city centre, is mutually incompatible. Similarly, improving
public transport with a view to increasing usage, whilst not encouraging the simultaneous integration of
new places of employment within the public transport infrastructure network, will cancel each other out.
This has implications for local and national government action in the sphere of land use policy and
particularly the cohesion between urban development and public transport.
In this context, it is important to recall Bratzell´s comments (1999), whose study focuses on goals and
strategies of political actors, the structure of car-oriented versus environmentally oriented interests in the
policy arena and the impact of institutional arrangements for sustainable urban transport policies. He
examines some cases with relatively successful policies, and concludes that the main obstacles for
implementing more sustainable urban transport policies can be found in the political process, where the
popular indicatives might have fundamental importance.
In the developing countries, despite of lower car ownership figures, and higher public transport share, one
can observe gradual degradation of whole transportation system, because of limited investments in the
transport infrastructure. Gakenheimer (1999) mentions some specific issues affecting levels of mobility in
developing countries. One can emphasize the rapid pace of motorization, conditions of local demand that
far exceed the capacity of facilities, the incompatibility of urban structure with increased motorization, a
stronger transport-land use relationship than in developed countries, lack of adequate road maintenance
and limited agreement among responsible officials as to appropriate forms of approach the problem.
4
Focusing on Brazilian example, BODMER & PORTO (2000) have pointed out several factors to be
considered as relevant for performance of urban public transport, which has been run basically by buses,
operated by private concession, considering only marginal participation of train and metro alternatives.
The main factors being mentioned and analyzed by authors are significant increase of car use and bus
fleet circulation, emergence of informal van transport and its vertiginous expansion, and low investments
in mass transit, including its infrastructure - on the supply side, and land-use concentration, several
changes in demographics, employment distribution and also transformations in life style – on the demand
side. Combination of these factors has been also causing significant changes with respect to
transportation needs. It seems to be evident that low quality of transit does not have a chance to satisfy a
bundle of heterogeneous desires of consumers, claiming for higher effectiveness and quality in transport
system. The transport scenery in capital cities in Brazil, as an example, is characterized by transit decline,
traffic jumps, low traffic and personal safety, and air pollution.
During the last decade, bus transit has been losing a part of its demand, which has been migrating to the
car or to the informal transport provided mainly by van operators. There is also a part of population, which
does not travel by transit any more.
It could be mentioned an example of São Paulo city, where the demand for public transport has been
dropping down during the last five years, with figures showing 43% decrease. Considering another
example, city of Rio de Janeiro, despite of higher population dependence on transit, there is also
registered decline, representing 16% during the same period of time (BODMER & MARTINS, 2002). The
most significant reduction in bus transit passengers has occurred since 1999 as a consequence of
economic stagnation and also of van proliferation and car increased use.
With regard to other capital cities, one can observe that the transit demand has dropped from
approximately 7,6 billion passengers to 5,7 passengers per year, representing 25% of decrease
(BODMER & MARTINS, 2002). In spite of in a half of the capital cities the transit demand tends to be
stable, in others, mainly of higher population, despite of efforts trying to recover demand loses, transit
passengers numbers continue with decreasing tendency.
Although the average income of population has been increasing during last years, there is also observed
an increase in unemployment (with rate raising from 4,7 in 1995 to 7,5 in 1999; recent statistics show the
highest rate of 18 % in São Paulo in 2003), highly correlated to the movement of urban population. On
the other hand, the people remaining in the jobs with increased relative income and having an easier
access to the car tend to be more demanding with respect to the higher standard of transport, switching to
the car or van service (appearing as an informal job opportunity for hundreds of unemployed people),
when it is possible. It is important to remember that private car fleet has been increasing approximately
40% during the last five years. There are also many changes in urban travel patterns associated to the
population activities’ chains.
Local governments, planners, operators, and also many other organizations have been engaged in
formulating policies trying to discourage car use in CBD areas, through the parking policy or using several
traffic calming measures. With respect to informal transport run by vans, there are made efforts to regulate
or restrict the use of them. But, this is important to recall that there is still enough market place for them,
since they have been making a profit and also providing more personalized services.
Private bus transit traditional operators started to improve their services, adopting some marketing
strategies oriented to their consumers. BODMER & RODRIGUES (1999) relate some innovative
experiences introducing improvements on products introduced and diffused by bus companies oriented to
their traditional users.
The production of the small buses (micros) as a response to the competitive market has exploded during
the final nineties. While the urban bus production has dropped from 12,992 vehicles in 1998 to 6,765
vehicles in 2000, the number of micro-vehicles sold to the operators has increased from 1,195 units in
1999 to 3,100 units in 2000, what represents this fleet expansion of 162,8 % (BODMER, MARTINS at al,
2001). The operators are also concerned with some operational measures, such as cost cuttings, process
improvements, people engagement (joint effort with total quality programs) and some of them try to offer
discounts, diffuse information on system supply, among any others. Many of them are trying to identify
5
new client segments, providing for them special services with higher standard and also higher fare.
Despite of it, decline of transit passengers still persists.
Transit marketing is based on market knowledge and should be considered as an important instrument for
transit managers and planners, since it is concerned with consumers’ satisfactions and desires, service
profitability, and system sustainability. Considering the extended six p’ marketing mix (see Figure 1)
adopted originally, the operators, since 1998, have been giving the focus on product differentiation, trying
to imitate new van operators through the use of lower capacity vehicles with comfortable seats, air
conditioning etc.
The main characteristic of this effort is that the transport has been treated as a service itself, without
taking into account, what represents the main reason for transportation: social and economic activities,
which take an advantage of transportation services, and are usually aggregated and consolidated in
traffic-generators with high impact on urban environment. That is, because the transport and land-use
should be interactively managed.
3. LAND-USE AND TRANSPORT INTERACTION
Land-use and transportation relationship has an important role in planning and management, because its
existence was always evident in every circumstance. It was already implicitly present, for instance, when
Rio de Janeiro City, from 19th to 20th centuries, expanded itself towards the south zone. The company
providing tram services, further than to produce only transport service, promoted urban expansion, once
the tram provided localization economies to that “new” space. The concept of IMM adopted here could
not dissociate transport from urban and regional development policies.
In spite of the approaches adopted, inserted within the last economic cycle – with Keynesian inspiration —
, and applied to attending the road-traffic industrial logic tried to establish a strong relationship between
transport and land-use, in fact, transport and circulation plans ware mainly not connected to urban
development goals, but are reduced to mere proposals with functionalist and autonomous character
(transport understand and treated as the end itself).
Once the logic of road-traffic policy leads to travel freedom (car and bus allow higher mobility — door-to-
door movement), the use of road mode resulted to become itself hegemonic in urban planning. Since the
public agencies invest only in the infrastructure, the real-state capital falls into the parking cost for private
cars, and passenger transport companies spend resources on transit fleet.
The participation of those agents in that road-traffic policy resulted also in causing split between land-use
and transport policies. This means, the connection between land-use and transport policies was reduced
to only duty to provide parking as defined by land use and occupation’s law for new buildings, increasing
value of use, in the urban space, for car. Even the proposals conducting to traffic hierarchy in municipal
master plans are not coherent with policy of urban activity localization.
In the Brazilian academic community, during the early 90’s, urban infrastructure, particularly that one of
transport, comes into the light as a source of new business opportunities with social responsibility. An
improved concept of so called joint development (U. S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, 2000),
which applies to reinforcing the link between transit and the community that it serves, is reexamined by
Mobile Group.
With the privatization of the economy, the need for new urban space production and management models
is emphasized to achieve financial and environmental sustainability. The logic of urban production in new
economic cycle — which has already started – is based on transport multi-modality (with definition of
market niches), the integrated urban logistics’ activities (in the sphere of the capital production: work and
circulation; and in the sphere of social reproduction: leisure, residential settlements and education),
instead of based on the exclusive dependence of a sole transport technology.
There are signs that the real-state capital starts to perceive that expansion of infrastructure for the car with
the same intensity as the increase of demand can not be financially sustainable, because of the high costs
6
to mitigate negative externalities (social, immobilization and environmental costs). With the concession of
mass transport infrastructure to private initiative, new projects appear and treat transport integrated to the
land-use activities. If, on the one hand, financial capital seems to draw its attention to new models of land
transformation, on the other hand, the increase of the number of civil inquiries in Rio de Janeiro in last
years reveals also the development of social consciousness in relation to the urban diseconomies and
need for new transport management models.
This is a trend that cannot be ignored by the building business, which has been questioned during last
years in relation to the environmental impacts, mainly these caused by traffic-generators on circulation.
Once the urban space is limited, traffic-generators, such as shopping centers, hotels, hospitals, schools,
and administrative buildings for instance, are not able to attend the demand increase. The dilemma for
their administration with respect to impacts on the economy of the city is how to enlarge the space
available between two options: for their core activity or for parking. After all, it is observed, taking into
account the Brazilian reality, that of shopping centers, for example, require about 40% of shopping area
for parking. Once the productivity of the parking is significantly lower than that one of area designed for
shopping, many times the subtraction of number of garage locations in benefit of commercial area is
considered as a better alternative to satisfy the political pressure for the establishments’ expansion. In this
case, it is verified that, in spite of the increase of the number of cars attracted, the only compromise with
the attainment of immediate profits prevails and aggravates the parking deficit. On the other hand, the
consequences of the troubles provoked, in short-term, in the neighborhood go against the transport-
generators interests. When this occurs, it is evident that the solution of the access problem is connected
to the development of new forms of accessibility and mobility management.
4. NEW CONCEPTS FOR URBAN PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
Nowadays, within unstable economic scenery, the organizations are exposed to the market changes and
many social requirements. In this context, it is necessary to considerer strategic sustainable focus and a
long-term flexibility through the expansion of simple products-services, defined by companies’ core
competencies (or activities). Thus, the theoretical approach adopted here is systemic, that means, it
considers the economic activity configured in network.
Urban activities separately are considered as core activities to whose the transport service is integrated.
Since the transport services aggregate value to the core activities of the urban business (commerce and
services, leisure and tourism), they may effectively aggregate value of use and redefine products and
services differentiated in the city, so making more closed to the social and economical interests.
Following this trend, Kotler (1999) emphasizes how the marketing professionals do not prepare only
products, but packages of benefits that should have not only purchase value, but also value of use. Thus,
in any kind of activity it could be find the need for transformation of Central Product-Service into a
Product-Service Package. This could incorporate a set of services that can be more attractive and able to
attend the consumers’ expectations. For this definitions should be considered significant contribution of
GRÖNROOS (1999), who brought into the light a concept of amplified supply of services, which
comprises core services, facilitators and peripheral services.
The Mobile Group’s proposal for urban development policies sustained by new transport services
assumes the concept of Product-Service Package within IMM. In this case, in the private sphere of
decision-making, both location of urban economic activities and transport system are treated jointly as an
urban logistic chain. In order to incorporate transport to the core activities of the real state urban
entrepreneurs and developers (shopping, leisure, business, etc.), the supply chain has to be managed
strategically and integrated with profitable urban activities gaining this way competitive advantage.
By using the concept of Product-Service Package, transport can be not only a part of commercial Product-
Services, but also could work as a consumption facilitator, stimulating the communities loyalty to their
local business, and at the same time integrating communities and urban activities in a network. The idea
7
is to assure, through the transport services integrated to transit-generators, economies of localization and
agglomeration for two types of urban situation:
o Urban expansion zones as strategy to stimulate the attraction of new opportunities of
employment, leisure and consumption, better distributing them equitably in the urban
space, and
o Existing areas that already reveal negative externalities (immobilization cost, pollution,
etc.). In this case, one deals to incorporate urban environmental quality, by defining new
plans of circulation and services of transport integrated to urban projects (urban design,
traffic calming, demand and mobility management).
The main idea of this approach is to provide a proper transport system to business networks, engaging
the actors, whose take a part of transport production and urban activities (real-state building, commerce,
services and leisure). Thus, one expects to foster the synergy of the logistic chain of transport-land use
with the purpose of communities’ revitalization (see Figure 2).
The transport will be made available to the communities as a complementary service to the most frequent
activities and perceived as a free, since it is designed within a package of shopping or service benefits for
clients associated to the network of activities whose expectancy is to get some privileges. The adoption of
this option characterizes a relatively advanced stage of creating the client’s loyalty, which Kotler (1999)
calls “associated customer”.
Thus, a Product-Service Package model is defined, which, besides the traditional offers of urban activities,
provides accessibility through the collective or greening transport for the special clients (immediate
influence area’s community) associated to a benefits Program. That Program enables their providers to
make relationship with clients (local communities) closer, offer the rewards for remaining loyalty to urban
activities partners network. As consumption in network shops and the preference for collective transport is
going to increase, the associated clients, holders of affinity cards, receive a series of benefits, from whose
could be pointed out the discounts on the purchase and special attendance in shops adhering to the
Program. On the other hand, the companies involved in this Program have the opportunity to customize
the relationship by learning about the specific characteristics and requirements of consumers, and then
use these data for tailoring the services according to their needs and preferential habits.
This approach, sustained on the strategy of considering the accessibility to the urban activities as
aggregated value to its central business, enables to conjugate the interests of several agents
(entrepreneurs and local management body) that establish partnerships and develop laboratories of urban
development policies comprising whole production cycle: planning, implementation and monitoring of the
Product-Service Package concept. With the Mobile support, an emphasis is given on Relationship
Marketing and urban mobility management research referring to this concept.
5. PARTNERSHIPS’ MANAGEMENT & AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
The Product-Service Package here proposed requires a new form of business management, since it
implies in the introduction of additional competencies to those ones developed up to then by urban
activities’ firms, on one hand, and transport companies, on the other hand. A new organizational
orientation makes part also of the proposed strategy, which means to redefine its social role and establish
innovative relationship between the productive sector, the clients and the society.
This renewal comprises the composition of cooperative network that strengthens all of the participants to
face competition and to develop a capacity of adaptation to changing social, economical and cultural
scenarios. Nowadays, constitution of joint-venture networks is recognized as a faster, more intelligent and
flexible method to follow and be responsive to the changes in habits and life styles of different segments
of the society and to create a real advantage in any business.
8
Joint-venture enables, first of all, flexibility in implementation of new ideas which could not be
accomplished by organizations individually and that, through the joint action of partners, represent lower
costs, more significant impacts on the society and maintenance of position or leadership in the market.
Thus, the traditional role of the shopping center, for instance, which allows concentrated sales of goods
and services should be transformed in an integrating role of business, not yet thought, to increase the
quality of life for the population and, consequently, rise the attractiveness of the own shopping center for
its clients.
It could also be stressed that several services conceived within such environment could not be produced
by a sole organization, but it is recommended to outsource them. Thus, it is attenuated the distance
among several sectors (sales, delivery services, transport, communications, entertainment, tourism, etc)
that become working within alliance. Many authors writing on contemporary management are also
pointing out that the best business performance in the present world are those ones showing capacity to
coordinate service activities, suppliers networks, and inter-sector relationships.
A proposed managerial model, based on strategic partnerships and relationship marketing is presented in
Figure 3. The main agents involved in this model are:
o Client-citizen (requiring an active consumer, participating in the process of production and
consumption of urban private and public services), and through this taking a part of urban
policy formulation;
o Production agents of urban activities and accessibility (providers of additional value
through the services efficiently produced and sold in a differentiated way) and
o Managerial entity (board or agency centered in the social, economical and environmental
equity, being in charge of the management, planning and development of whole IMM).
The proposed model is characterized by an effective technical and social integration among the agents
involved concerning the formatting of details of the Product-Service Package, processes, technologies in
use and the managerial information flow, aiming to attain a joint optimization and a work system able to
respond to the requirements from the client and environment. The structure, as shown in Figure 3 is
tripartite: Management, Consumption and Production.
Concerning to Management sphere, the joint enterprises shall constitute a director board, with advising of
Research & Development group, able to assure the implementation and operation of the IMM according to
the strategic planning and schedule of activities. In spite of the decision units correspond to the partners’
entities and their autonomy has to be preserved, a coordination to attain the joint objectives has to be
established.
In the Production of Activities sphere, the partner-enterprises promote operational conditions to assure
inter-sector exchange and information flow in function of their specific interests (for instance, advertising
campaigns, strategies of sales, etc.).
Finally, in the Production of Accessibility (Transport Service) sphere, the outsourcing reaches to
incorporate specific know-how and necessary to meet the needs of final consumer, without being
required any significant changes in the logistic chain of each enterprise partner.
The model here presented comprises constitution of urban activities network, which could be understand
as an organizational network able to achieve, through the integration, competitive advantage, efficiency,
effectiveness and equity. It should be stressed that, exactly isolated posture of each organization leads to
degradation of cities.
It is important to emphasize that the strategies here proposed aim to support the urban development with
social and environmental responsibility. The main idea is to transform an image of big traffic generators
9
(where the activities are concentrated), usually impacting negatively local community, in undertakings
promoting and levering socio-spatial integration. This way organizations involved in this process assumes
their social responsibility and become contributors for community livable access to the urban opportunities
(work, leisure, shopping etc).
This model was developed for a case of shopping center located at the central area of City of Rio de
Janeiro and, presently, and its full version implementation still depends on further negotiation with the
main partners. More information on this experience provides Martins et al (2002b).
The design of the service for its clients has taken into account the consumer residential location, their
income and also the consumption preferences. There was carried out the market research, which has
been used to identify the target group of consumers, representing 8% of the shopping total demand and
which travel there usually by car at minimum twice a week, and living at maximum 2km from shopping
center, distance where 40% of all its consumers are located.
There are also located dozens of potential partners offering goods and services, which could be
considered as complementary and not competitive to the shopping center activities, such as
supermarkets, schools, hospitals headquarters of many companies, banks, underground stations among
the others. The proposal of organizational joint-venture architecture could be seen on Figure 4, where can
be perceived different role of each participant, documented in more details by Martins et al (2002b).
The product-service package comprises a loyalty program oriented to the frequent transit users, whose
gain several advantages on shopping and leisure activities, when leave their cars at home. The shopping
and other complementary partners should develop learning relationship strategies, allowing them to
customize products and services and build a close relationship. This also relies on the information
technology, which provides inter-connection within the partnership network and long-term information on
consumers’ behavior.
There were also recommended transit services for employees, for a local community which claims the
impacts of shopping center activities and should be compensated, transit service for lunch-time and
happy-hours for student and employees at the University, and also integrated service for hotels and
airports. This way the shopping center should be able to achieve not only significant advantage above any
other commercial activity, but also, if services for clients and employees are considered, it could in two
years withdraw 980 private cars per day from its parking space. This is equivalent to the 10% of its
parking capacity. With respect to the air pollution, Rio Sul Shopping Center withdraws, in the second year,
approximately 38 tons of carbon monoxide per /year from Rio de Janeiro’s atmosphere.
This concept could be applied to promote sustainability of any transit alternative and economic activities
development. During last two years, the Mobile, contracted by National Bank for Economic and Social
Development, has been working on the similar applications for 10 (ten) metropolitan areas in Brazil,
focusing on revitalizing the water urban transport and integrating it within the urban activity system. The
proposals of this study resulting in water transport alternatives articulated within urban activities are
concluded (Martins et al, 2002a, 2003).
6. CONCLUSION
The central idea presented in this work is based on the thesis of IMM, which incorporates the concept of
the Product-Service Package and requires a new management model of interactive nature, built following
the principles of relationship marketing, in which all agents attempt to identify the common interests and
negotiate the divergences. In this model the normative and prescriptive approach is abandoned, prevailing
a dynamics or process, in which the balance is searched and conflicts are mitigated.
Basic premises adopted in this model stress that organizations should strengthen links with the client-
citizen, center on basic competencies and transfer the peripheral activities to other companies, establish
multiple partnerships and collaboration networks, follow the technological evolution and innovate and
acquire a new social, ethic and environmental responsibility.
10
Finally, the adoption of this model in the urban environment enables partners to manage in a sustainable
way not only the micro-accessibility of traffic-generators as well as the macro-accessibility, in which the
private real-state investments are associated to the public urban projects and the enterprises start to
articulate themselves in network fostered by the greening transport, with emphasis on transit. Thus, it is
expected to promote the synergy of the logistic chain of transport-land use that leads to urban
communities’ revitalization.
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APPENDIX
Real - Estate
Capital
Urban Activities (Retail,
Services, Leisure &
Dwellings)
Land Capital
Financial
Capital
Transit Operators
Technology
Industry
Energy & Equipment
Providers
Provision
of
accessibility
e
Urban
Activities’
production
Figure 2 - Logistic-Chain Synergy for Urban Community Revitalization
Market Research
PLACE
PROCESS PROMOTlON
PRICE PEOPLE
PRODUCT
Figure 1 – Marketing Mix for Transit Service
13
Figure 3 – Integrated Mobility Management Model
CONSUMPTION
Client—Citizen
PRODUCTION OF
ACTIVITIES
Constructors and
Commercial Partners
PRODUCTION OF
ACCESSIBILITY
Operators,
Cooperatives and
Suppliers
MANAGEMENT
Directory Board,
P& D
Relationship Marketing
CLIENT
TECNOLOGY
SUPPLYERS
PLANNING &
DEVELOPMENT GROUP
SHOPPING MERCHANDS &
OTHER PARTNERS
CO-OPERATIVE
OPERATORS
TRANSIT COMPANY
OTHER SUPPLYERS
DIRETORY GROUP
Needs &
Expectations
Consume
Monitoring & Development
Enterpreneurship
evaluation
Fuel and other
supplements
Operational staff
Goals & Strategies
Communication
package
Product-Service
Package
Information &
promotion
Transit operation
Core Produts-
Services
N
S
Equipments
Figure 4 - Organizational Joint-venture Architecture
Evaluation
Information &
promotion
Information &
promotion
Information &
promotion
Information &
promotion
Information &
promotion
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