REQUEST FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST PL0212 On-The-Go Digital Travel Station Reply Due Date: March 22, 2012

Transcription

1 REQUEST FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST PL0212 On-The-Go Digital Travel Station Reply Due Date: March 22, 2012 The Metropolitan Transportation Authority ( MTA ) is seeking an expression of interest from entities interested in being the advertising agent(s) or a sponsor of a future network of interactive customer information kiosks, named On the Go! Travel Stations ( OTG ). OTG is a collaborative effort with New York City Transit (NYCT), Metro-North Railroad (MNR) and Long Island Rail Road (LIRR). OTG is currently a pilot program in five (5) locations; however, the MTA plans to expand its rollout in many more subway and railroad passenger stations. To assist in this rollout, the MTA is seeking to understand the best way to maximize the OTG s revenue potential and MTA s return on investment (ROI) from the OTG s advertising / sponsorship capabilities. This is a Request for Expression of Interest ( RFEI ) only; it is issued exclusively to elicit information. It does not represent a Request for Proposal ( RFP ) or any promise that an RFP will be issued by the MTA; however, actual proposals may be solicited by means of a RFP at a later date. This RFEI does not commit the MTA to contract for any material or services. The MTA shall not award a contract as a result of this RFEI. The rights to accept, reject or use any information submitted in response to this RFEI without obligation or compensation are retained by the MTA. The MTA shall not pay for any information or any costs incurred in responding to this RFEI. It is the intent of this RFEI to obtain all relevant information to enable the MTA to make proper decisions toward the development of a strategy that will ensure a viable, maintainable, cost effective customer information system supported by advertising for the foreseeable future. The MTA is looking for industry experts to provide their experiences, lessons learned and technology guidance, advertising maintenance support services, and industry best practices in operating and maintaining the advertising system on the OTG. The MTA realizes that not all responders will have the depth and breadth of expertise and experience to cover all questions in this RFEI. The intent of the RFEI is to gather information from the industry, and is not meant to qualify or disqualify any responders for eventual contractual solicitations for the OTG. All responders are encouraged to respond to any and all subsets of questions where they may have relevant information. RFEI The MTA believes that digital signage offers a number of significant advantages over traditional, static advertising, by providing third-party advertisers and sponsors with the ability to target specific market segments and differentiate demographics. Through this RFEI, the MTA is 1

2 particularly interested in exploring revenue opportunities through digital advertising placement on the OTG units once the installation is expanded to a full roll-out with units in many more stations. One of the areas that the MTA is interested in is the local or hyper-local advertising market. Specifically, the MTA is interested in assessing opinions about the potential mix of local and national advertising in terms of maximizing revenue potential. Key to this effort is a system that provides the flexibility to program advertising by time and/or day part and location, providing the opportunity to target/maximize reaching the targeted audience. Additionally, the MTA is interested in the sponsorship marketplace, and whether there is a financial model where a single brand would place their brand on all the OTG kiosks and therefore underwrite the program. This RFEI has the following objectives: 1) To assess and determine overall advertising revenue potential with OTG program; 2) To identify potential interested advertising agent(s) and/or sponsors involved in digital advertising placement and/or branded sponsorship programs; 3) To measure the level of interest and/or demand within the advertising industry and potential brands/sponsors to support this program and assess the overall value of the OTG program (business entity sponsoring, partnering or funding a roll-out of the OTG program); 4) To gain information about the type of content, format, and interfaces pertaining to digital advertising placement OTG Pilot Program The OTG pilot program includes an interactive kiosk screen designated area for service/information and for video advertisement. A system-wide roll out of the OTG, or another digital network could provide the MTA with an extensive Digital Out-Of-Home (DOOH) network to communicate service and other travel information to customers. Unlike other customer-facing technology initiatives, OTG has the potential to provide recurring revenues through digital advertising located on the bottom portion of the screen display or through a branded sponsorship. OTG is an innovative tool that gives customers information about their complete trip, from trip planning and service status to information about nearby restaurants and other destinations, resulting in an unprecedented amount of information inside the subway system. Market research has shown that this type of information is highly valued by our customers. The OTG kiosk screen has a designated area for service/information and a designated area for video advertisement. The purpose of this pilot program is to test the concept of the network as a platform to integrate and manage several streams of customer information. The pilot is designed to test the platform across multiple MTA Agencies and determine its revenue generation potential. 2

3 The technology is an interactive, touch screen, digital information center where a portion of the screen will be allocated to advertising. The content is currently controlled using a web-based management system. Four of the pilot units have a hardwire connection to the network however one unit is testing the feasibility of wireless connectivity over 4G cellular. The size of OTG screens is 47 (diagonal). The entire screen is 1920 (h) x 1080 (w) pixels and the advertising space is 608 (h) x 1080 (w) pixels. The remaining application options include the following selections: Service Status and Train Times Maps for subways, buses, railroads and neighborhoods TripPlanner+ Real-time bus information, where available Third-party applications to tell customers about nearby cultural, dining and entertainment destinations (e.g. at Railroad Terminals and major stations) The OTG pilot project deployment started in September 2011 and includes three NYCT subways stations (Bowling Green, Atlantic Avenue Pacific Street, and Jackson Heights Roosevelt Avenue) as well as two commuter rail stations (LIRR's Penn Station and MNR's Grand Central Terminal). The pilot is expected to run for a period of six months and can be extended. Installation Locations The MTA envisions OTG being implemented in a variety of ways and appropriate for many different types of locations within our system, including but not limited to: 1) Locations requiring real-time transit information (Service status, train departures, MTA Bus Time) 2) Intermodal nodes that connect multiple modes of transportation (e.g. Grand Central, Penn Station, Atlantic Avenue, etc.) 3) Information resource locations/destinations (High traffic stations that are heavily used by tourists and other customers) 4) Larger station complexes with multiple transfers in unpaid and paid areas (e.g. Grand Central Terminal Information areas to display map, store/restaurant directory, etc.) 5) Subway platforms to replace stand-alone paper maps and diversion information 6) Virtual Agent (Fare control areas where the station booth or phone bank has been removed or other areas of unused space) In most instances, it is anticipated that more than one unit will be installed in a location where space allows. (See Appendix: Simulated Multi-Bank OTG) An array of OTG units would allow multiple customers to utilize the device at any given time and it would also permit passing customers to view the default screen on one unit while an individual is interacting with another unit. Multiple screens provide advertisers the ability to provide rich, immersible content to riders, thereby increasing the value of the screens and potentially leading to increased revenues. 3

4 Response Information All responders are reminded that failure or inability to respond to questions in this RFEI will not preclude them from further involvement, including the respondent s ability to participate in the RFP process or deliver under a contract. Therefore, all participants are encouraged to answer questions that fall within their area of expertise and provide an honest, practical and candid response for this RFEI process to be successful. Following its evaluation of all RFEI responses, MTA will determine a course of action. These options include: Responders may be requested to meet with MTA personnel to further discuss or clarify their responses based on the proposer s area of expertise. These meetings may include visits to responder s facility for demonstrations and/or inspections of equipment or operating environments. Responders may be requested to provide additional technical specifications, catalog cuts, product roadmaps or other information for evaluation in support of their responses. To assist the MTA in finalizing a business plan for a system-wide roll out of On the Go! Travel Stations or another digital interactive platform; please respond to each of the following questions separately: 1. Please provide a synopsis of your company, including: a. Advertising or sponsorship sales force description (national/local) b. General experience in local and national advertising and sponsorship sales, both NYC or elsewhere c. Experience with digital, new/emerging, hyper-local, out-of-home, mobile or other types of advertising and sponsorship d. Experience with MTA or other transit agencies e. Alliances or partnerships with other firms or entities to deliver similar projects, including technology, media sales and advertising partners f. Experience with systems delivering real-time information to mass audience and/or individual basis g. Experience with interactive digital advertising systems 2. Has your firm implemented similar service for other public entitles or transit agencies? If so, which ones? Please describe the functionality of the implemented services. 3. Indicate preference and experience with use of wireless infrastructure, such as Wi-Fi or wireless mesh. Detail your firm s advertising avenues and optimum technology interface requirements or preferences (streaming video, cached video, streaming data and cached data). 4. Please provide your technical (software/hardware) system requirements to serve the proposed (and/or required) ad network. For example, indicate the software system 4

5 that may be used to deliver ads, if the system is open source, and experience in managing comparable advertising networks. 5. Do any of your suggested technical (software/hardware) system requirements in question #4 require add-on software hardware or licenses? If so, please indicate which features require the additional components. 6. Please assess and indicate the overall network size (OTG units) needed to sell advertising space and your firm s preferred contract term/duration. (e.g. Scale of 0-50, , , etc.) 7. Outline roll-out economics across each agency and/or viability across the MTA family. Assess and recommend the minimum, maximum and/or optimum number of locations per location and per agency as well as the best locations to implement. 8. Provide projections/assessment of gross sponsorship and advertising revenue potential for national, local and/or hyper-local advertising sales and what share of such revenues would be paid to MTA. 9. What are your suggestions to fully and/or partially sponsor the roll-out of the project? What would a sponsor require? 10. What are your suggestions to minimize the cost or maximize the revenue of this project? Avoid cost escalation during the contract? Avoid change orders? 11. Does your organization provide services for maintenance of the advertising system? 12. Are there any networking constraints to supporting your suggested technical (software/hardware) system requirements? 13. What business arrangements are typically used for provision of these services? 14. Do you support or have policies and procedures defined for disaster recovery for the advertisements? 15. What support would you require from MTA? 16. Do you have a basic service level agreement? Can you share a copy? 17. Identify any assumptions that you have made in your responses. 18. Does this RFEI clearly present MTA s operating vision for this project? If not, what items need to be clarified? Transit Agency Background Information The New York City Transit (NYCT) subway system is located within the boroughs of Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx in New York City. At present there are 468 stations, with four new stations currently under construction. There are 281 stations are underground (including 5

6 new stations under construction), 153 stations are elevated, 29 are located on embankments, and 9 are built in open cuts. The NYCT average ridership is approximately 5.1 million riders on weekdays, 2.9 million riders on Saturdays, 2.4 million riders on Sundays, and 1.6 billion riders annually. For detailed ridership statistics, please visit: The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) serves 124 stations in Nassau, Suffolk, Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan, providing service for over 81 million customers each year. The LIRR carries an average of 283,000 customers each weekday on 735 daily trains and 185,000 customers on 922 weekend trains. The LIRR system is comprised of over 700 miles of track on 11 different branches, stretching from Montauk -- on the eastern tip of Long Island -- to Penn Station, approximately 120 miles away. The Metro-North Railroad (MNR) is the largest commuter railroad in the United States and provides transportation to approximately 283,000 customers each weekday and provided a total of over 82 million trips in MNR goes to 120 stations and operates commuter rail services on three commuter lines east of the Hudson River (the Hudson, Harlem and New Haven Lines) which originate at GCT, and two west-of-hudson commuter lines (the Pascack Valley and Port Jervis Lines) which originate in Hoboken, NJ. Confidentiality It is understood that some of the submitted information may be proprietary or confidential in nature. It is the responsibility of the respondent to clearly mark and indicate all material that it considers proprietary or confidential. MTA will limit distribution of proposal material to its key personnel and consultants only, while maintaining confidentiality pursuant to the applicable provisions of law, including the New York Freedom of Information Law. The MTA is responsible for all matters related to this RFEI and has designated the individual named below as the MTA Representative to administer same. All contacts regarding this RFEI shall be made only to such MTA Representative. Schedule and Response Interested parties should submit their expressions of interest responses no later than Thursday, March 22, 2012 to onthego@mtahq.org. Digital responses in a PDF format are preferred. If you are submitting hard copies and/or CD/DVD (electronic copies) of your response, please send them to: Metropolitan Transportation Authority 347 Madison Avenue New York, NY Attn: Peter Lyons RE: RFEI PL Please send all questions to onthego@mtahq.org. 6

7 Appendix: Atlantic Av-Pacific St OTG Bowling B Green OTG B T T Grand Central OTG Penn Station OTG 7

8 Simulated Multi-Bank OTG Systems 8