July 7, 2023
The 2023 statewide celebration of Nebraska Public Transit Week (NPTW) provided agencies, their employees, and passengers a week of fun activities and contests.
Some of the many events and activities that were planned by agencies include:
- Discounts
- Buy one ride, get one ride free
- Half price rides
- New passengers ride free
- Veterans ride free
- Ride and bring a friend along for free
- Ride four days, get the fifth day free
- Employee Appreciation Day
- Lunch
- Donuts
- Scavenger hunt
- Driver Appreciation Day
- Thank you notes from passengers
- Passenger Appreciation Day
- Goody bags handed out
- Wear a crazy hat and ride for free
- Sweet treats handed out
- 70s hippy week
- “I Rode the Bus” sticker and bus cookies handed out
- Motivational phrases handed out
- Husker Day
- Any passenger that wears sunglasses will get a free ride
- Wear your favorite team shirt
- Wear red, white, and blue
- Tye Dye Day
- Crazy Sock Day
- Bike and Ride Day
- Contests
- Guess how many M&M’s are in the jar with the closest guess winning a 10-punch card
- Daily drawings for $60 bus tickets
- Drawing to win a free city transit pass
- Public asked to find a stress bus in some of the local businesses around town, return it to the office for a drawing for $25 Chamber Bucks
- Passengers names entered in a drawing each time they ride to win a $10 boarding pass
- Spot the bus, take a picture, post it to your Facebook page and tag the agency to be entered in a drawing
- Take a picture while on the bus and post it to the agency’s Facebook page to be entered in a drawing
- Passengers names entered in a drawing each time they ride to win donated gift cards from local businesses
- Find Waldo on the bus and snap a picture with him and post to the agency’s Facebook page to be entered in a drawing
- Passenger who is the lucky number passenger of the day wins a $20 bus ticket
- Games
- Coloring contest for children passengers
- Crossword Puzzle, Word Find, BINGO games for adult passengers
- Donations
- One way ride free with nonperishable, non-expired food product donated to local food pantry
- Stuff the Bus for local food pantry
- Events
- Open house
- Transit talk with Q&A and building tour
- Marketing
- Staff visiting with local businesses and sharing table tents promoting and advertising the transit agency
Each year, the Nebraska Public Transit (NPT) team sets goals for the annual celebration to encourage agencies to participate. The first goal was to have 50% or 27 agencies participate in NPTW. This was measured by the number of agencies submitting their event/activities list to be posted on the NPT website. Unfortunately, this goal was not met, but NPT did have 20 agencies submit their event/activities list.
The second goal was to have 25% or 14 agencies have a NPTW presence on their website or Facebook page. This was measured by agencies posting a flyer advertising their list of events/activities on their website or sharing a NPT Facebook post and adding text of their own. We are happy to report this goal was met with 14 agencies sharing a NPT Facebook post.
NPT also held a photo contest for the second year requesting votes via the NPTW website. Seven agencies participated and the winner was Crawford Public Transportation with a total of 255 votes. Crawford Public Transportation chose to have their vehicles custom detailed as their prize for winning. Watch the video below to see the before and after images of their vehicles. Other agencies and their respective total votes were North Platte Public Transit System, 214 votes, Blue Rivers Transportation System, 148 votes, Midland Public Transit, 37 votes, Valley County Health System, 34 votes, City of Sidney Transportation System, 31 votes, and Garden County Public Transportation, 1 vote.
View all of the Nebraska Public Transit Week photos from agencies on the Nebraska Public Transit Facebook page.
The NPTW organizing committee thanks all the agencies for their participation in the many events and activities during NPTW! We hope more people across Nebraska were able to see the benefits of public transit and plan to ride more in the future.
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