Providing SamTrans with their opinions proved to be prize-winning for three San Mateo County youths. Mason Lok, 12, of Redwood Shores, Connie Calimbas, 14, of South San Francisco and J. K., 16, of Burlingame were the top three winners of SamTrans’ 2008 Summer Youth MyPass Contest.

Lok, who won an Apple Ipod gift pack, has been purchasing a summer youth pass for a couple of years and used his MyPass to ride SamTrans to College of San Mateo for the Kids Summer Program. “It was a 40-minute ride to and from my home to school.” said Lok. “SamTrans was pretty easy to use to get me to where I wanted to go this past summer.”

Second place winners were Calimbas and J. K., who won digital cameras. Other contest prizes included monthly youth passes and digital photo keychains.

Calimbas, who saw an advertisement for the summer youth pass at her high school, appealed to her mother to buy it. Calimbas said she and her friends used their “MyPass” every day to go to the mall and the beach. “It was really fun,” she said. “It allowed me and my friends to go where we wanted to go safely.”

SamTrans’ launch of its 2008 Summer Youth “MyPass” program into cyberspace was aimed at riders age 17 years and younger. On the site, kids learned about the SamTrans’ deeply discounted summer youth pass and completed a simple online survey about their favorite destinations, which made them eligible to win prizes.

During the promotion, SamTrans saw a 10 percent increase in youth pass sales. The special Web site also received more than 4,000 hits.

“The online site gave us the opportunity to get to better know our youth riders,” said SamTrans Marketing Manager Patrick Boland.

According to the survey results, 259 respondents said they rode SamTrans within the last 12 months. Of that number, 48 percent said they rode the bus three to five days a week. School and the library were the top destinations, followed by the mall, work or to visit friends or relatives.

The survey also disclosed that close to 65 percent of youths who bought the pass were repeat customers.

Surprisingly, Boland added, the survey found 54 percent of respondents still use cash as payment to board the bus and only 35 percent used a monthly pass. “The high percentage of youths paying cash makes this a good market for us to promote our discount tokens and monthly passes,” said Boland.

On a typical weekday, nearly 12,000 young people ride SamTrans buses, which is close to 24 percent of its total ridership. In addition to a discounted youth fare, tokens and summer pass, SamTrans also encourages young people to ride the bus by offering a discounted monthly youth pass for riders 17 years old and younger.

09/19/08 - msk
01/26/10 - msk
Media Contact: Mary Knuckles, 650-508-6356