Arlington County’s Car-Free Diet Skeptics Duke It Out in 30-Day Challenge
This article describes an outreach campaign conducted by the Arlington County (Virginia) Commuter Services’ (ACCS), called the Car-Free Diet Skeptics challenge. The Car-Free Diet is not an actual diet, but a lifestyle that encourages people who drive alone to explore alternative transportation options, like riding the bus or metro, biking, walking, carpooling, vanpooling and teleworking. The challenge was designed to be a user-generated campaign that required applicants to apply online via a two-minute video that showed why they would make the perfect Car-Free Diet Skeptic. Six contenders came forward and two --- Ross and Todd --- were selected through online voting (limited to one vote per person per Skeptic per day). Judging combined online voting results with the following judging criteria: an explanation of why you are Arlington’s biggest Car-Free Diet (CFD) Skeptic and if chosen, how you will go about being car-free or car-lite for 30 days; the ability to communicate well and engage an audience while on camera; and overall creativity. Todd and Ross began their face-off on Earth Day – April 21, 2010 – and completed the Challenge on Bike to Work Day 30 days later on May 21. They both were given access to social media to log their experiences and they communicated about their challenges and struggles to avoid using a car via Facebook postings, Tweets, blogs, vlogs and with YouTube uploads, photo postings, and by check-in’s via Foursquare. The author notes that, before launching the Car-Free Diet program, Arlington County conducted extensive research to determine the most compelling factors associated with visitors and residents using their wide variety of alternative forms of transportation versus the single occupancy vehicle. Research indicated that one of the most attractive features of Arlington County for visitors and residents alike was that they didn’t really need a car at all to get around Arlington or to reach the major tourism or cultural sites of the nation’s capitol. The Car-Free Diet campaign was created to stimulate awareness and motivate behavior change among the young, well-educated professionals, which make up a substantial portion of the Arlington market, and are also the most likely to be willing to try alternate transportation modes. The article includes 2 still pictures from the videos made by Todd and Ross. A final section of the article explains in detail how the Car-Free Diet campaign was marketed.
- Record URL:
-
-
Authors:
- Wright, James L
- Publication Date: 2010
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Web
- Features: Figures; Photos;
- Pagination: pp 25-29
-
Serial:
- TDM Review
- Volume: 17
- Issue Number: 3
- Publisher: Association for Commuter Transportation
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Age groups; Best practices; Bicycle commuting; Bicycling; Commuting; Computers; Marketing; Public transit; Publicity; Software; Travel demand management
- Candidate Terms: Social networking
- Identifier Terms: Car-Free Diet; Facebook; Twitter; YouTube
- Uncontrolled Terms: Blogs
- Geographic Terms: Arlington County (Virginia); Virginia
- Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Public Transportation; Safety and Human Factors; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning; I73: Traffic Control;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01219939
- Record Type: Publication
- Files: TRIS
- Created Date: Oct 26 2010 9:53AM