Over 500 responses to our online survey, in addition to the attendance at our Trolleys on Tap listening sessions, indicate that there is a great interest in our trolley system! Below is a summary of the survey results, mostly in chart form, with some comments added:

QUESTION #1: The first question was finding out how often you ride the trolleys: The response with the most hits was “less than one time/week.” The second highest total response was “Never.” My first thought was that we’ve got a lot of people taking the survey who don’t even ride the trolleys! But keep in mind that a “never” response is shown by route – one of the 147 people who ride the Vol Line 1-3 times/week might also respond that they “never” take the Gay Street Line. I think this might more likely mean that people can be loyal to their particular route – taking the Downtown Loop, for example, but not necessarily taking the others as well. Make sense?



QUESTION #2: Please rank the following potential expanded service options in order of their importance or value to you:
Service until 10 pm, Monday – Saturday
Service added on Sundays
Service after midnight on Fridays and Saturdays
Trolleys running more frequently (Every 5 minutes instead of every 10-12)



What shows in the chart above are the times that someone ranked each item as the number 1 priority. While the frequency ranks high in the responses (#2), what we’ve heard in our outreach meetings and in the survey comments is that it’s often not necessarily the ‘scheduled’ frequency so much as the actual and consistent frequency that is the issue. Later service during the week was the largest request of those listed as options, and this is also something we have been hearing in the listening sessions.

Question #3: Please rank the following potential service expansion locations in order of their importance or value to you:


  Again, what shows below are the times that someone ranked an item as the number 1 priority. As you can see below, the online survey mimics what we’ve heard in the listening sessions: The Old City is an important connection to be made with the trolley system.



QUESTION #4: Which are the most important connected destinations within the trolley system, in order of their importance or value to you:
UT to Downtown/Market Square
Knoxville Station to downtown
Civic Coliseum garage to downtown
Downtown to University Commons (Publix and Wal Mart)


Clearly, the UT to downtown connection is important to many people.


QUESTION #6: How would you best describe yourself?



ADDITIONAL COMMENTS (Question #5)
Of the more than 500 survey responses received, there were 232 individual comments added. My first thought was to create a Wordle of all of the comments to see what themes emerge.



So, the Wordle certainly creates an interesting picture of what people were saying, but leaves out much of the detail, considering “Old City” is two words that were treated individually, etc. But you get the idea. The real analysis of the comments involved reading all of them and trying to whittle them down into themes and categories. Three major themes emerged:
1. The consistency of trolley frequency can be lacking and is a problem. Many mentioned long waits – longer than the advertised frequency. Related to that were comments about uneven spacing of the trolleys.
2. This is a city of connected downtown neighborhoods. Adjacent close-in neighborhoods bring people into downtown – people who want to get around after work hours and connect back to neighborhoods. Neighborhoods mentioned include Ft. Sanders, Emory Place, Old North, Fourth & Gill, Parkridge, etc.
3. More information and branding is needed at trolley stops – the stops themselves should be recognizable, and information regarding routes and schedules should be available at each stop.




Now we’re going to put all this together and see if we can recommend some changes that address what we’ve heard while keeping us budget neutral. Stay tuned.