Category: Urban Planning

10 Tips on How to Promote Public Participation in 2023

This blog was originally published on June 11, 2015.

Strategies to Drive Engagement for Your Project

You’ve prepared your online survey, organized the public meeting, and arranged all your engagement opportunities to support your upcoming project. Now you wait for the community to participate… Right?

As most planning and public engagement professionals know, capturing your community’s attention can take time. When it comes to diverse participation and collecting a representative sample of community opinions, it can take a lot of work to expand your reach beyond the same handful of frequent public meeting attendees.

Luckily, there are a few straightforward strategies you can leverage to promote public participation online and increase and broaden your engagement! We’ve compiled a list of 70+ pro tips to consider when promoting your next public outreach project. Let’s get started with 10 popular tips…

1. Create Urgency

Advertise when your survey is closing so you can grab the attention of those who may have procrastinated to complete the survey and reach others you may have missed. People are far more likely to participate if they feel a sense of urgency! Let your audience know there is a limited time to provide input through your calls-to-actions and marketing content. Count down to the last day and then consider extending the participation period due to “unprecedented demand.”

2. Be Hyper-Relevant

It can be challenging to get people excited about a long-range planning process. You should make your engagement tactics creative and inclusive. Connecting your project with issues that are top of mind today is critical. Conduct research in your community to understand what troubles people face, especially any underserved voices that may feel they are not being heard.

For example, suppose your project relates to transportation. In that case, you might create a sense of urgency by linking it to the frustration surrounding congestion. You might try something like, “Tired of traffic? Have your say here.”

3. Solicit Earned Media

Media outlets are always searching for relevant content. Reach out to them and ask them to profile your project; this can help your survey gain traction with difficult-to-reach audiences. Also, connecting with more informal sources, like local bloggers, can help you achieve game-changing results without spending money on advertising.

4. Leverage Social Media Strategically

The key to social media success isn’t having a bunch of followers – it’s about the level of engagement with your community. Great social media campaigns require consistent effort, so ensure you have a social media schedule before starting to stay on track. Strategically dedicate the appropriate time and resources. Even with a minimal budget, social media channels can be used to promote your initiative and get your community to share your content with their networks.

5. Use Your Existing Contact List

Mass email campaigns are still one of the best tactics for reaching your community. Drive engagement by simply tapping into your existing contact list and sending them a message. You can also leverage the email lists of your partners and significant supporters to dramatically expand your reach and increase the credibility of the project. If the calls-to-actions come from multiple sources, the campaign will seem more like a movement.

6. Try Different Calls-to-Action

Your campaign may compete against the short attention spans of your potential participants. You need to use the right language to promote public participation, being conscious of the background and context of the project. Different groups will respond to different tones, so test multiple options and see what language works best for the various groups in your target audience.

7. Offer Incentives

Incentives can be very effective in promoting participation. Use prizes and rewards to encourage your community to participate and build excitement. For example, offering a physical prize, like an iPad, is a great way to help drive participation. We also encourage teaming up with local businesses to arrange to give out gift cards and other treats!

8. Leverage Community Groups

Community groups and neighborhood leaders have wide networks. Reach out to them to help champion your upcoming project. They’ll be able to share information about your project with their contacts to boost your engagement and reach groups in your community you might not have been able to otherwise. Since they are well-trusted, it increases your credibility, and the project, on the whole, can be treated more favorably!

9. Use Many Different Outlets

In today’s world, there are a variety of outlets to leverage: social media, press releases, newspapers, radio, TV, and your website. Don’t rely on just one medium to get your message out there. Combine the best of traditional and digital marketing techniques to promote the public participation opportunity to the widest possible audience.

10. Raise the Bar High

Concrete goals lead to real results. Not only are specific goals the key to strategic planning, but they also serve as a useful motivational tool for you and your team. Have a clear objective for digital participation and push towards that goal.

When engaging people online, if you’ve done a great job making your tool attractive, easy to use and filled with content that resonates with people’s priorities, early users will be happy to spread the word for you. These promotional strategies will help you get the ball rolling and keep it going to reach the broadest demographic possible.

Whether you’re planning a new road safety plan or gathering input for a long-range transportation plan, we’d like to see your project engage as many people as possible. We strongly believe that broad and inclusive public engagement leads to better insight into community preferences, more innovative plans, and smoother and more efficient project implementation.

Check out our eBook, 12 Ways to Promote Your Online Public Survey Like a Pro!

Compelling online surveys combined with effective promotional strategies are the most cost-effective way to engage 1000s of citizens fast. Explore 70+ pro tips to optimize participation for your surveys!

DOWNLOAD NOW

March 16, 2023
FAQ on The Ultimate Virtual Public Involvement Checklist Webinar

Our first webinar of 2023 was a success!

Dave Biggs hosted The Ultimate Virtual Public Involvement Checklist webinar to share details on our latest eBook release alongside Emily Margitan, one of the Customer Success Managers here at MetroQuest.

MetroQuest partnered with AASHTO, AMPO, TXDOT and COMPASS to compile a list of 101 questions to consider throughout the planning, engagement and reporting phases of every project.

In this webinar, we unveil key aspects of our new Checklist for Success and explore how asking the right questions can help your team deliver great virtual public involvement results on every project!

Here are a few clips from our live Q&A…

https://vimeo.com/796721338

[scroll-box]Dave: Emily, Our team is new to VPI. What training or support does MetroQuest provide for customers to help them get started?

Emily: Yeah, that’s a really good question. It’s something I’m quite involved in, in my role. And so, when new companies are onboarded at MetroQuest, we offer virtual training sessions essentially, and we can go through in detail with the software live with the team. Depending on how large the team is, sometimes it’s broken up into a couple of sessions and then we work really closely with those teams.

So often we might even have typically a kickoff call with senior leadership to really talk about what are their goals, what are they hoping to get out of MetroQuest. And then we do the actual training of the software, a demo, and we go through and often it’s very customized depending on the organization in terms of what they’re looking to get out of MetroQuest.

And then essentially I’m kind of their primary contact as they get started. I used to work in public engagement and design surveys, and so I love getting to work with teams closely on their surveys they’re working on. And so, you can kind of expect when you’re getting started that we will hold your hand along the way and help you get a sense of the software.

And then to our support team is fantastic. They are really good at answering questions and a bit of a sneak peek: We have a live chat feature that’s going to be coming up soon! I think our new customers are really going to love that because when you, you know, there’s little things, it’s sometimes writing a whole email out seems really formal, so you can easily quickly pop up the chat and kind of talk to your team in real time.[/scroll-box]

https://vimeo.com/796806092

[scroll-box]Dave: What do you think are the biggest barriers to participation? So, maybe I’ll weigh in on this because I’ve got an acronym for this because I’ve been asked this question so many times. My acronym is TACK: Time, Awareness, Connection, and Knowledge. People lack often the time. People are working two or three jobs, you know, their time is of the essence. Public meetings are completely out of the question for a lot of people. So, keeping it short.

Awareness: they might not even know that this project exists. They might not be connected to the agencies or follow them on Facebook and all that sort of thing. So just awareness raising is so important. Connection means: do they feel like the outcomes of this are going to impact their lives?

Do they feel connected to it like it’s they’ve got some skin in the game in terms of the outcomes, and then knowledge is do they feel comfortable weighing in? Some people feel like, well, I don’t have any experience with transportation, so I don’t know if my opinions are valid. A lot of people kind of discount their own ability to have a priority about something. And so, giving people the confidence to participate is so important. [/scroll-box]

https://vimeo.com/796806143

[scroll-box]Dave: What suggestions do you have regarding hybrid engagement? Hybrid engagement has been the topic of the post-pandemic, if we can call it post-pandemic, period. So very quickly from me… if you’re going to have face-to-face engagement with virtual public engagement, the things to keep in mind are if you’re going to ask questions face-to-face, make sure that they’re the similar or the same questions that you’re asking online so you can actually combine the answers together.

Oftentimes, with face-to-face engagement, you can go into more detail with people. You can really get the kind of a face-to-face experience and really get more information about the underlying concerns that people have about different options going forward. And so it’s an opportunity to really expand on what you might be hearing in volume online with some more nuance.

So really take advantage of that discussion time with people to be open to what is it about this that makes you afraid or concerned? What is it about this other option that attracts you and gets the nuance around it? Emily, anything to add about hybrid engagement?

Emily: I think you said that perfectly, Dave, and in my experience, often projects benefit in most cases from both because you’re going to have those stakeholders that are really, really invested in the project. Maybe there’s someone that lives right next door to where it’s happening and they’re going to want that forum to really get their opinions out and whether that’s, you know, around a table where you’re talking that can be really effective.

But then you’re going to have people that don’t want to spend their evening coming to a meeting and they want to just quickly do a survey online. So I think, yeah, in most cases, it’s really going to be beneficial in many different ways.[/scroll-box]

https://vimeo.com/796806165

[scroll-box]Dave: Dave, if a project is controversial, does VPI open the agency to even more resistance? I’ve got a short amount of time here. I’ve got more to say on this. But essentially, the short answer is virtual public engagement actually does the opposite. By making engagement more difficult, you’re essentially filtering out all the people who aren’t angry at you, who aren’t willing to give up 2 hours to shake their fist at you.

So, by making it really easy for people to participate, you’re actually expanding the range of people that participate to the people that are less motivated and typically less angry. Especially if you have a controversial project, you want to make it as easy as possible for people to participate so you can hear the full range of opinions and not just the people that are so fired up that they’ll go to any lengths to give you a piece of their mind, as it were.[/scroll-box]

Access The Ultimate Virtual Public Involvement
Checklist webinar now!

WATCH ON-DEMAND

February 9, 2023
The Future of Electric Vehicles in Transportation Planning: An Interview with Andrea Noel

The planning industry always needs to consider evolving modes of travel, and electric vehicles are climbing up the list. I recently had the opportunity to connect virtually with Andrea Noel, the Planning Supervisor for the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT). The agency most recently developed a plan as part of their commitment to support electric vehicle technologies. Andrea gave us a complete breakdown of the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Deployment Plan, which will support Tennessee’s mission to create a network of electric vehicle charging stations along key routes in the state.

Here at MetroQuest, we were intrigued to learn how the team at TDOT utilized our software for understanding the future of electric vehicles in transportation planning, and excited by the successful engagement efforts made by Tennessee DOT to gather public input on the plan! In our conversation, Andrea shared why MetroQuest was so useful for this project and discussed the strategies they implemented for their public outreach, how the results affected the plan, and what, in her opinion, the future holds for electric vehicles in transportation planning.

Continue reading to get all the details…

Why did you choose MetroQuest for your Tennessee Electric Vehicle Infrastructure survey?

Well, that was easy. We want to use MetroQuest for all our planning surveys because it provides such a good visual for people. With other software, sometimes people can’t answer the question exactly how you had it, or sometimes they don’t even understand the content.

“It’s kind of like when you go to the voting station, right? And you’re like, oh, I didn’t read up on that guy. I don’t even know if I should vote for him or not. When you’re taking a survey, it’s similar. MetroQuest really gives you the ability to see it on a map and see where it is.”

I love that section where you can put a list of things and add a description and picture. I think that helps people answer questions with knowledge. I think that it is important to be able to give participants the information within the survey. That’s the part I love about it the most. I feel like it’s more than just a survey. It’s a way for us to give them information and educate them.

What strategies did you use to gather public participation?

Our whole public engagement plan was to use several methods for participation. We wanted to be able to go to people in person and also have a survey for those that didn’t show up. We traveled around the state, and we did nine locations in person. Our first step was doing a webinar and putting it on the website. And then we did the survey, which was open and collecting public input from May 1st until May 30th.

“We just wanted to have a lot of different things so that everybody that wanted to participate could. We got 1,014 responses in that 30-day period.”

We did have a social media campaign. We used Facebook, Twitter, and sent out reminders. We also had an email blast. We sent out over 7,000 emails to our stakeholder group. We sent the link to the survey and the dates and locations of where we were going to be.

During the in-person session, we had little cards printed with a QR code so they could click on them and be taken to the survey directly. At in-person events, they wanted to ask questions, but we didn’t feel like we were getting the answers we needed. The survey is what really gave us their prioritized choices.

What were you hoping to achieve by using MetroQuest?

We had two goals. Our first goal was to find out what people wanted when they drove up to a charging station. We gave them a list of ten things and said, “which four things are the most important for you when you go to a charging station?” The top concern turned out to be safety. But then we even broke safety down into, what do you want out of safety? People wanted to know that there would be lights 24 hours a day and cameras in case something happened.

“When we start writing the guidance this week, safety is our number one priority. That’s going to be a requirement now because that’s what we got out of the survey. We’ll be putting their priorities into action.”

The second goal was to identify specific locations stakeholders thought would be good for charging stations. On our last screen of the Survey, we had an interactive map activity. We built-in a location buffer because the charging stations must be within a mile of the exit. We buffered the map so that they could only click in a within a mile of that buffer. We wanted to know, where do you want to see the stop? Where would you stop if you were driving from one side of the state to the other?

How did the public participation results impact your plan priorities?

We didn’t even think about the plan. We didn’t think about the guidance. All we did was think about how to engage the public first. As the month went along, we looked at in-person and online comments and saw a lot of safety concerns. At the next meetings, we would say if safety were your first priority, what exactly does that mean to you? We were able to delve deeper into it. No one had any preconceived decisions or notions; we let the public decide for us what those priorities would be.

What results did you achieve on launching the survey, and what were the outcomes that came from the data?

The survey closed on May 30th, and during the first two weeks of June, we analyzed the data, which was easy because MetroQuest had already given us the map showing where people took the survey to see if it was relevant to where we had our in-person meetings.

We did find that the highest participation levels were also where we had our in-person meetings. We think going in person and promoting the survey helped boost those numbers.

Looking at the data, we discovered only 2% of participants identified themselves as being from the freight industry. I’m attending a statewide freight advisory group meeting to present again about the plan. We will meet them in person and ask for their opinions to put into the guiding document.

Having the Survey data helped us focus on who we think we missed.

What do you think the future holds for Electric Vehicles in transportation planning?

I don’t think it’s going away. We have to think about how it’s going to change how we plan because people can move differently now. We’re going to have to start thinking about where people are going to charge their electric vehicles. What are they going to be near when they charge? Are they going to stop and have dinner?

In five years, things are going to look so much different. As planners, we have to keep our minds open to the next thing because in likelihood, these chargers are not going to be here in 20 years. They’re going to be outdated in five, and then we’re going to have to be thinking about the next thing. We need to really start looking at our plans as being like five-year increments, more so than we used to do.

Congratulations to Andrea and the entire team at TNDOT! We’re so inspired by your public engagement efforts and looking forward to seeing how your impressive survey results shape Tennessee’s electric vehicle infrastructure planning!

For more ideas on successful public outreach, read our past interview with Adrienne Heim, the Public Information Officer for San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency: An Interview with Adrienne Heim: Engagement Strategies, Tips and Techniques to Help enhance Your Public Outreach. Need help reaching diverse crowds? Read our latest blog 5 Equitable Community Engagement Tactics: What to Expect from #VPET22.

September 15, 2022
4 Survey Examples to Inspire your Next Transportation Plan Study
Community surveys can be a mixed bag in terms of effectiveness. Practitioners in planning, and transportation planning in particular, can have a difficult time catching the attention of their community when there are so many other things competing for their attention. But when done well, online community engagement can have a profound and meaningful impact on your project. With an eye toward the best examples of online surveys that achieved great results, let’s take a look at 4 different survey examples that will inspire your next transportation plan study. If you know what you’re looking for, feel free to jump ahead to the type of survey you need:
Planning Ahead: Survey Examples for Long Range Transportation Plans

Long range transportation plans are all about learning the growth patterns and opinions of the community now, and gathering insight into how projects can meet growing demands of the future. 3 elements to consider when developing an online survey for LRTPS:
1. Gathering input early in the process. This will help generate interest and knowledge in the project, as well as help your planners identify community priorities.
2. Maintaining communication with the surveyed population over time. This could be done through post-survey reports, announcements… or even a follow up survey.
3. Giving context! Particularly because the results of the survey won’t be enacted for years to come, give context around existing plans, the latest update, and what you’ll do with the information afterward.
In Treasure Valley, located in Southwest Idaho, the Community Planning Association (COMPASS) foresaw rapid population growth in their area over the next 30 years, and thus needed a way to understand how their citizens were currently using the transit system, as well as fine-tune a transit option that would suit the population now, as well as while it grew. This survey example is actually a 3-in-1 example. COMPASS used a series of three surveys to first identify the public’s opinions on the future; get opinions on 4 scenarios derived from the results of the first survey; and finally do a deep dive into the scenario that proved most popular in the second survey.

DRIVING THE FUTURE

WHERE DO WE GROW FROM HERE?

ALL ABOARD! EXPLORING TRANSIT OPTIONS FOR THE TREASURE VALLEY

If you’re curious about how these surveys worked out (spoiler alert: very, very well) visit COMPASS’ case study for the full story!

Mobility Options: Survey Example for Route Scenario Planning

How do you show different scenarios to the community, while conveying all the pros, cons, and tradeoffs that need to be made for each one? Scenario planning can be complicated, especially when it comes to gathering public input and identifying the option with the most public support!

3 elements to consider when developing an online survey for scenario planning
1. Showing the benefits and drawbacks of each option clearly. Your participants need to clearly understand the stakes.
2. Cutting out irrelevant details for clarity. What details do participants need to know to make an informed decision?
3. Anticipating additional options. Sometimes the community has different ideas for the region! Give participants a chance to provide input on their priorities in general.
Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) needed to ease the congestion around the city of Seminole, a major hub and important transportation corridor. The roadway provides access for the region’s agricultural industry as well as the energy sector, and faced mounting pressure and increased use. TxDOT wanted to gauge community properties and identify the best option out of the several that the agency had identified.

This survey example is a great one because it approaches the problem of conveying scenarios by giving participants two different activities to consider the same three scenarios. Take a look at the example survey below to see how that helps illustrate the options clearly and effectively.

SEMINOLE RELIEF ROUTE
Updating the Future Vision: Survey Example for Metropolitan Transportation Plan

Federal mandates around updating Metropolitan Transportation Plans (MTP) mean that this form of transportation planning can take up a lot of resources. Particularly with a public engagement element, a well–designed online survey can make the process easier.

3 elements to consider when developing an online survey for metropolitan transportation plans
1. Setting expectations for participants. With regular plan updates necessary, creating routine or consistent engagement opportunities can improve participation rates over time!
2. Efficiently utilizing resources. With the regularity of MTP updates, consider dedicating some resources into developing the skills and tools you’ll need time after time.
3. Developing branding. If you’ll be regularly engaging the same community, it’s a good idea to establish a consistent and memorable brand—even if it’s just colors and a logo.
In Louisiana, the Capital Region Planning Commission (CRPC) in Baton Rouge focuses a large part of its resources on updating the Metropolitan Transportation Plan every four years. By regularly updating a vision of future transportation, they’re able to coordinate with local governments and key stakeholders to ensure that projects support existing priorities in the region.

This survey is beautifully designed, with well thought out placement of key information and interactive methods of gathering input. The team was familiar with the survey platform and used their expertise to build a very engaging survey, including a budget game to demonstrate resource tradeoffs, and a map to collect geospatial data around the region’s biggest transportation needs.
MOVE2046 SURVEY

Environmental Factors: Survey Example for Planning and Environmental Linkages

With a focus on environmental aspects, Planning and Environmental Linkages (PEL) studies are a crucial part of transportation planning, particularly because of its impact on the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) environmental review process.

3 elements to consider when developing an online survey for PEL studies
1. Establishing data requirements. As an inter-agency study, it’s important to keep on top of each agency’s particular data needs.
2. Designing surveys with the outcome in mind. PEL studies have direct impact on how agencies plan transportation projects!
3. Developing realistic timelines. Although PELs minimize duplication of efforts between planning and NEPA processes, the additional stakeholders involved can complicate deadlines.
The Michigan Department of Transportation, working with AECOM, created this survey for a PEL study around Grand Rapids and Wyoming. The purpose was to evaluate improvements for a section of the US-131 around the conditions and safety of the corridor, as well as local needs, community development and economic growth.

The survey was developed in response to comments received during the initial study process. The team used clever methods to maintain data integrity throughout the survey, including limiting certain answers to drop-downs or multiple-choice, and designing the complex questions to feel short and not-overwhelming.

US-131 PEL STUDY

For more information, the Federal Highway Administration has some excellent resources on the Planning and Environment Linkages page.

What types of surveys would you like to see examples of next? Let us know in the comments!

To learn more about using online surveys to support your next transportation project, contact us for more survey examples or watch our recent webinar on-demand:

The Art & Science of Effective Online Surveys for Planning

The road to success with online surveys is part art and part science. This webinar explores both by unbundling the most successful MetroQuest surveys and what made them so effective!

WATCH WEBINAR
August 17, 2021
5 Ways to Get the Most Out of Virtual Conferences: Online Community Engagement Learning at #VPET21

In the last 18 months, the world has become more virtual than ever, and the workplace is no exception. In fact, it may be the place most notably affected by the online-only trend. Working from home has become the norm and many have adjusted to digital meetings and attending events virtually.

While there are a great number of benefits to virtual conferences, such as networking or gaining insight and inspiration from the comfort of your home and saving time and money, there are also a number of potential stumbling blocks that any virtual activity brings. Many of us have experienced the challenges of home distractions or are experiencing “screen fatigue”.

Given that virtual engagement is MetroQuest’s bread and butter, we are very excited to be teaming up with the APA and NCDD to host our first-ever virtual conference on September 28th: Conference on Virtual Public Engagement for Transportation Planning (#VPET21)! To ensure you receive the maximum benefit from our conference, I have put together a quick guide with 5 tips to help you make the most of #VPET21. Let’s get started…

Things to keep in mind before the virtual conference:

Tip #1: Prepare ahead

Before the event, be sure to familiarize yourself with the platform, review the schedule to prioritize the sessions you are particularly interested in and double check your technology works to ensure you are set up for success!

Take the chance to review the conference website to see if there are sessions or keynotes you definitely don’t want to miss.

During the conference:

Tip #2: Minimize distractions

Find a quiet space where you will be undisturbed, block off your calendar for the day, log off your email or instant messaging and even turn your phone off if possible. Consider this a regular workday – if you need child or pet care, be sure to organize it ahead of time!

Tip #3: Participate actively

Go beyond listening; take notes, ask questions, note down any speakers you want to connect with, and participate in online polls, chats or Q&A sessions to make the most out of the sessions. Most virtual conference planners, just like public engagement practitioners, have levelled-up their virtual-engagement, so there should be plenty to keep you actively engaged!

Tip #4: Take breaks

The conference has scheduled breaks for a reason! Stretch your legs and move between sessions. Stock up on desk snacks, have your favorite beverage handy and perhaps even consider having a meal delivered to you that day!

After the conference:

Tip #5: Network and connect

Connect with other attendees or speakers who you’ve noted down during the conference to deepen your insights. In our experience, speakers are happy to hear from attendees and discuss aspects of their session in more detail, answer questions, or help provide resources.

If you’ve attended with co-workers, it can be a good idea to schedule a meeting or get-together to debrief and share your key takeaways and learnings. Everyone takes away something different, and all of it can help your team achieve virtual community engagement success.

For more information on the conference, check out our recent blog or our conference website.

If you haven’t already, you can click here to register to attend! If you have any specific questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out directly.

Stay tuned for more details regarding the event and the fantastic line up of speakers we have in store!

Grab Your Ticket Today!

REGISTER

August 3, 2021
[SURVEY OF THE MONTH] Shaping the Future of Transportation in Baton Rouge, LA
The Survey of the Month series is a monthly blog where we highlight the extraordinary work our customers are doing, along with some takeaways that are relevant for anyone interested in making the most out of online engagement using MetroQuest’s survey platform! To see more in the series, visit the blogs here.

The Capital Region Planning Commission (CRPC) in Louisiana is a Council of Governments serving eleven parishes around Baton Rouge. The agency coordinates and addresses regional issues related to transportation, land use, economic development and the environment. It is the Baton Rouge area’s designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO).

As such, CRPC focuses a large part of its resources on transportation planning, including the federally mandated update to its Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP) every four years. MOVE2046 is the Capital Region’s MTP, and the team utilized a MetroQuest survey to great effect!

Let’s take a look at what they did…

What’s the story? Developing the future of transportation in LA with MOVE2046

MOVE2046 creates the future of transportation in the region by developing goals, strategies, and projects that will help achieve a vision over the next 25 years. The plan encompasses half of the parishes that the MPO serves, and is developed in coordination with local governments as well as key stakeholders to make certain that it supplements, rather than hinders, existing plans in the region.

Broad community engagement around the plan ensures the public has ample opportunity to get involved and help shape the plan’s vision, goal, and recommendations with their input. Currently, the project is in its second stage where options are being evaluated. For more information, please visit https://crpcla.org/move2046.

Anatomy of a Survey: A Classic LRTP Survey for Engagement

Long-range transportation plans (LRTPs) have traditionally been the single most common use of MetroQuest, from back in the early days of our software to now! MetroQuest can be (and is) applied to any planning context, and the MOVE2046 plan demonstrates just how exceptional an online survey can be for transportation plans.

After the Welcome Screen, which informs visitors of the plan and of the survey’s purpose, participants are asked to rank their priority items out of a list of 7, namely (in random order) Improve Connectivity, Improve Walking and Biking, Support the Movement of Freight, Improve Public Transit, Improve Safety, Maintain What We Have, and Reduce Traffic Congestion. This Priority Ranking Screen allows participants to tell the survey team what is most important to them.

On the next Screen, participants are asked to distribute a fictitious but representative budget of $100 into eight possible categories, namely Maintain What We Have, Move Freight More Efficiently, Improve Safety for All Users, Improve Public Transit, Maximize Existing Network with Technology, Add New Roads or Widen Roads, Improve Bike/Pedestrian Facilities, and Improve Streetscape Appearance. It is a gamified experience asking for priorities while also highlighting the fact that funds are finite!

The last interactive Screen, before wrapping up the survey with demographic questions and ways to stay involved, is a Map Marker Screen which asks participants to show the region’s biggest needs by dropping markers onto a map of the area in question. The marker options are Congestion, Bicycle and Pedestrian, Public Transit, Safety, Maintenance, and Other. This type of Screen allows participants to tell the survey team exactly where they see issues and opportunities!

You can try the MOVE 2046 survey here. This is a demo version that will not affect the survey results.

5 Tips from MOVE2046: Good survey design is all in the details!

The MOVE2046 Survey made the most of MetroQuest’s capabilities to serve their LRTP purpose! Below are 5 takeaways from their survey that can help you when designing your next public engagement survey:
1. Visitors landing on the MOVE2046 Welcome Screen are greeted by a beautiful background image along with rotating factoids. It is a simple yet very effective way to make the landing page eye-catching!
1. Each priority has a short description and uses an icon image to convey the meaning. Icons are a great way to supplement description of items as it keeps the Screen simple. Images are also popular! We know it can be a challenge to find what you are looking for, so we’ve created the updated image library for some inspiration and images to use; there are over 400 stock image that can be searched by keyword! You can access the Image Library from your MetroQuest Studio.
1. On the Budget Allocation screen, the survey team kept each of the categories short and to the point for maximum appeal and ease of use. However, they also made use of the “additional information” bubble for anyone who might want a bit more context on any of the categories. This is a great way to serve those who wish to know more without overwhelming the main area with too much text.
1. On the Map Marker Screen, each marker has a sub question with a drop down and a textbox, giving participants a space to elaborate on their choice. This enables the survey team to capture qualitative data that will help inform the plan, in addition to the quantitative spatial input!
1. Also on the Map Marker Screen, the survey team made use of the location drop down at the bottom right which allows participants to zoom into the area that is most interesting or concerning to them. This gives more precise and nuanced input by helping participants get to where they need on the map.
Congratulations to the team at CRPC for a well-executed project and a fantastic LRTP survey experience!

For more great tips on how to make the most out of MetroQuest, contact your Customer Experience manager or reach out for more information!

Want to learn more about how MetroQuest supports teams in achieving successful community outreach? Read about COMPASS’s success!

COMPASS Gathers Input from 18,500+ Participants to Plan Future Transportation

To help shape the future of the region into the year 2050, local planning officials at COMPASS in Southwest Idaho turned to the public for input and achieved record-breaking results!

WATCH CASE STUDY

Anatomy of a Survey: A Classic LRTP Survey for Engagement

Long-range transportation plans (LRTPs) have traditionally been the single most common use of MetroQuest, from back in the early days of our software to now! MetroQuest can be (and is) applied to any planning context, and the MOVE2046 plan demonstrates just how exceptional an online survey can be for transportation plans.

After the Welcome Screen, which informs visitors of the plan and of the survey’s purpose, participants are asked to rank their priority items out of a list of 7, namely (in random order) Improve Connectivity, Improve Walking and Biking, Support the Movement of Freight, Improve Public Transit, Improve Safety, Maintain What We Have, and Reduce Traffic Congestion. This Priority Ranking Screen allows participants to tell the survey team what is most important to them.

On the next Screen, participants are asked to distribute a fictitious but representative budget of $100 into eight possible categories, namely Maintain What We Have, Move Freight More Efficiently, Improve Safety for All Users, Improve Public Transit, Maximize Existing Network with Technology, Add New Roads or Widen Roads, Improve Bike/Pedestrian Facilities, and Improve Streetscape Appearance. It is a gamified experience asking for priorities while also highlighting the fact that funds are finite!

The last interactive Screen, before wrapping up the survey with demographic questions and ways to stay involved, is a Map Marker Screen which asks participants to show the region’s biggest needs by dropping markers onto a map of the area in question. The marker options are Congestion, Bicycle and Pedestrian, Public Transit, Safety, Maintenance, and Other. This type of Screen allows participants to tell the survey team exactly where they see issues and opportunities!

You can try the MOVE 2046 survey here. This is a demo version that will not affect the survey results.

5 Tips from MOVE2046: Good survey design is all in the details!

The MOVE2046 Survey made the most of MetroQuest’s capabilities to serve their LRTP purpose! Below are 5 takeaways from their survey that can help you when designing your next public engagement survey:
1. Visitors landing on the MOVE2046 Welcome Screen are greeted by a beautiful background image along with rotating factoids. It is a simple yet very effective way to make the landing page eye-catching!
1. Each priority has a short description and uses an icon image to convey the meaning. Icons are a great way to supplement description of items as it keeps the Screen simple. Images are also popular! We know it can be a challenge to find what you are looking for, so we’ve created the updated image library for some inspiration and images to use; there are over 400 stock image that can be searched by keyword! You can access the Image Library from your MetroQuest Studio.
1. On the Budget Allocation screen, the survey team kept each of the categories short and to the point for maximum appeal and ease of use. However, they also made use of the “additional information” bubble for anyone who might want a bit more context on any of the categories. This is a great way to serve those who wish to know more without overwhelming the main area with too much text.
1. On the Map Marker Screen, each marker has a sub question with a drop down and a textbox, giving participants a space to elaborate on their choice. This enables the survey team to capture qualitative data that will help inform the plan, in addition to the quantitative spatial input!
1. Also on the Map Marker Screen, the survey team made use of the location drop down at the bottom right which allows participants to zoom into the area that is most interesting or concerning to them. This gives more precise and nuanced input by helping participants get to where they need on the map.
Congratulations to the team at CRPC for a well-executed project and a fantastic LRTP survey experience!

For more great tips on how to make the most out of MetroQuest, contact your Customer Experience manager or reach out for more information!

Want to learn more about how MetroQuest supports teams in achieving successful community outreach? Read about COMPASS’s success!

COMPASS Gathers Input from 18,500+ Participants to Plan Future Transportation

To help shape the future of the region into the year 2050, local planning officials at COMPASS in Southwest Idaho turned to the public for input and achieved record-breaking results!

WATCH CASE STUDY
July 27, 2021