DART Resort Transit Celebrates Its 21st Season With Record Breaking Ridership And Beach Park & Ride Usage

Wilmington -- Started in 1990 as Delaware Resort Transit, DART Resort Transit is in the height of its 21st season and is celebrating with record breaking ridership and usage of the DART Rehoboth Beach Park & Ride lot. DART First State is operated by the Delaware Transit Corporation (DTC).

As of August 5th, the DTC Resort Bus System has broken records for the highest number of riders for the same period last year. There were 29,560 riders during this week which is a 24.11% increase over last year during the same week. The Route 201, serving the Rehoboth Beach boardwalk, accommodated 158,200 passengers so far this year. This represents a 36.50% increase over the same period for the 2009 season. The Route 305, Wilmington to Rehoboth Beach Connection, has seen a significant increase in popularity this year. At this point of the season, we have exceeded the last year number of riders by 39.46%.

The Park & Ride lot has seen a huge increase due mostly to the Rehoboth employees from businesses and public agencies. As of July 17th, there were 9,133 Rehoboth Beach employees using the Park & Ride lot compared to only 6,304 last year during the same time frame. This is a 44.88%. The number of full paying customers at the Park & Ride lot has gone from 4,024 last year to 5,106 this year, an increase of 26.89%.

Reaching out to beach area employers about the convenience of the Park & Ride lot was just one element of the DART synergistic and media domineering marketing efforts for the record breaking 2010 season. DTC Marketing sent letters to 733 employers about the employee discounted park & ride program. Other resort marketing awareness elements included print ads in two beach area newspapers, radio ads on 6 of the major radio stations in the State, and restroom display ads at 20 restaurant locations in the beach area. DTC Marketing staff also spent a week in the beach area distributing 26,100 resort schedules to over 1,000 Resort area businesses. In addition, DTC Marketing placed Resort ad boards in the major shopping malls at Christiana and Dover, along with Resort movie theater ads in Dover and Rehoboth. Promotion of the Resort service and especially the Park & Ride lot also included DART Rider E-Mail Notices, a special information and schedule page on DartFirstState.com, and on the DTC Weatherline reporting service serving New Castle County.

Year to date, ridership is up from Resort 2009 by 35.64%. DART has transported 227,459 riders so far this season. The 2010 Resort season has surpassed any and all prior years to date. The DTC record year was in 2008 and for this year ridership is 29.78% greater than the same period