Build­ing a Clear Service Hier­ar­chy: OC Transpo

A clear service hier­ar­chy informed by an orga­nized brand archi­tec­ture provides coher­ent commu­ni­ca­tions and shows connec­tiv­ity between services, includ­ing first and last mile. OC Transpo is in the process of reor­ga­niz­ing their service hier­ar­chy with the ulti­mate goal of creat­ing one seam­less jour­ney.

OC Transpo initially enlisted the exper­tise of Entro Commu­ni­ca­tions to develop a more effi­cient signage program to better commu­ni­cate the multi­ple services of OC Transpo. This goal would require a cohe­sive commu­ni­ca­tion strat­egy and Entro quickly under­stood that the complex­ity of their brand archi­tec­ture, with multi­ple iden­ti­ties would be a barrier to this ambi­tion.

Simpli­fi­ca­tion of the exist­ing brand archi­tec­ture to formu­late a cohe­sive service hier­ar­chy and develop a clear commu­ni­ca­tion strat­egy was key and this required a rigor­ous assess­ment of the OC Transpo system.

• A study of typi­cal OC Transpo trips and their asso­ci­ated actions shown through a Deci­sion Flow Chart
• An assess­ment of OC Transpo’s brands, sub-brands and comple­men­tary brands
• An analy­sis of the current route struc­ture
• A review of the exist­ing signage program

A second step was to compare this assess­ment with Best Prac­tice Brand Archi­tec­tures and Service Hier­ar­chies of global tran­sit agen­cies and then to develop key recom­men­da­tions. Together with OC Transpo, Entro Commu­ni­ca­tions is moving into the third step of the process which is detail­ing an inte­grated service hier­ar­chy that will be trans­lated into the phys­i­cal space.

If you would like more infor­ma­tion on our process please contact: Laura Sellors 416-368-6988 ext.228