Bus Advertising
Advertising with METRO is a great way to target Santa Cruz County residents and visitors. With a population of over 275,000 residents as well as a large number of tourists who visit our county’s beaches and redwoods every year, your ads are sure to be seen by your prime demographic. In addition to Santa Cruz’s year-round population, the county also hosts roughly 20,000 UC Santa Cruz students and additional students attending Cabrillo College.
Established in 1968, METRO provides fixed-route and Highway 17 commuter service throughout Santa Cruz County, with limited service connecting to Monterey Salinas Transit at our Watsonville Transit Center and Santa Clara County. We transport more than 5 million passenger trips a year. METRO also operates ParaCruz paratransit service to Santa Cruz County, providing about 67,000 trips per year.
For advertising inquiries or to confirm ad availability, email busads@scmetro.org
Rates & Sizes
Rates listed are per ad, per month net. Discounts are given based on the length of the contract. Mounting costs are a one-time additional fee upon installation, for longer-term contracts mounting costs will be applied to any new ad creative swapped out over the length of the contract.
Ad Sizes
| Ad Type | Size | Location |
|---|---|---|
| KING (FRAME OR VINYL) | 30” X 144” | STREET/DRIVER SIDE |
| QUEEN (FRAME OR VINYL) | 30” X 88” | CURB/PASSENGER LOADING SIDE |
| TAIL (FRAME OR VINYL) | 21” X 72” | BACK/REAR |
| SMALL TAIL (VINYL ONLY) | 12” x 40” | BACK/REAR |
| MINI TAIL (VINYL ONLY) | EMAIL FOR DETAILS | BACK/REAR |
| TOP RIM (VINYL ONLY) | EMAIL FOR DETAILS | TOP SIDE RIM PANELS |
| BIKE RACK (VINYL ONLY) | EMAIL FOR DETAILS | FRONT BIKE RACK |
| INTERIOR CAR CARDS | 11” x 17” | INTERIOR ADVERTISING |
| PARACRUZ ADS (VINYL ONLY) | 21” X 72” | STREET & CURB SIDE |
Ad Rates
| Ad Size | 1 Month Rate | 3 Month Rate 0% DISCOUNT | 6 Month Rate 10% DISCOUNT | 12 Month Rate 15% DISCOUNT |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KING | $420 | $420 | $380 | $360 |
| QUEEN | $265 | $265 | $240 | $225 |
| TAIL | $440 | $440 | $395 | $375 |
| SMALL TAIL | $270 | $270 | $240 | $230 |
| MINI TAIL | $200 | $200 | $180 | $170 |
| TOP RIM | $300 | $300 | $270 | $255 |
| BIKE RACK | $130 | $130 | $115 | $110 |
| CAR CARDS | $25 | $23 | $22 | $20 |
| PARACRUZ VANS SIDES | $240 | $240 | $215 | $205 |
Frame Ad Mounting Costs
- King $75 per sign*
- Queen $50 per sign*
- Tail $35 per sign*
- Car Cards $5 per sign*
*One-time charge at install and campaign change
Vinyl mounting costs are determined by the print vendor.
Set-Up & Production
The advertiser is responsible for design, production, and printing of all advertisements. Before printing, your advertising creative must be reviewed and approved by METRO. Upon contract, METRO will notify you of whether your ad will be framed or vinyl. Mounting fees for framed ads will be added to your contract and installed by METRO. Vinyl ad installation will need to be paid for and arranged with the print vendor.
Contracting Opportunities
Vendor Information
METRO has partnered with Bonfire Interactive to create a procurement portal that will allow you to receive notifications of business opportunities and submit bids and proposals to METRO digitally.
Access our procurement portal: http://scmtd.bonfirehub.com
Even though you may have already registered as a vendor and may have done business with METRO in the past, you must re-register through the Bonfire portal to continue receiving notifications about contract opportunities related to your area of expertise. Registration is easy and free. Please be sure to select at least one, or more, NAICS codes for your business or organization. Our solicitations will be set up using those codes and will be matched to vendors and contractors with the same codes.
Click here for registration instructions: Vendor Registration
METRO is excited about the changes we have made to streamline our electronic bid process, and we look forward to continuing our good relationship with you. We appreciate your interest in us.
You can continue to receive email notifications of any invitation to bid or request for proposal postings by subscribing to our free Mailchimp email notification service. Be sure to scroll through the sign-up box and select any relevant procurement types under “Bids and Proposals.
Protest Procedures
METRO’s Protest Procedures are available here.
Terms and Conditions
All authorized purchase orders issued by METRO are subject to METRO’s terms and conditions, which can be reviewed here.
Federally funded contracts are subject to the terms of a financial assistance contract between the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) of the United States Department of Transportation.
Tenant Space
METRO leases retail space at the following transit centers:
- Watsonville Transit Center, 475 Rodriquez Street, Watsonville, California 95076
- Cavallaro Transit Center, 246 Kings Village Road, Scotts Valley, CA 95066
For more information on leasing space at one of our Transit Centers, please contact us at (831) 426-6080 or properties@scmetro.org.
Developer Resources
What is GTFS?
The General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) is an Open Standard used to distribute relevant information about transit systems to riders. It allows public transit agencies to publish their transit data in a format that can be consumed by a wide variety of software applications, including Google and Apple Maps and the Transit App. Today, the GTFS data format is used by thousands of public transport providers.
GTFS consists of two main parts: GTFS Schedule and GTFS Realtime. GTFS Schedule contains information about routes, schedules, fares, and geographic transit details, and it is presented in simple text files. This straightforward format allows for easy creation and maintenance without relying on complex or proprietary software.
GTFS Realtime contains trip updates, vehicle positions, and service alerts. It is based on Protocol Buffers, which are a language (and platform) neutral mechanism for serializing structured data.
GTFS Feeds
GTFS Schedule (Static) Feed
GTFS Real-Time Feeds
- Trip Updates: rt.scmetro.org/gtfsrt/trips
- Vehicle Position: rt.scmetro.org/gtfsrt/vehicles
- Service Alerts: rt.scmetro.org/gtfsrt/alerts
Feed License
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License as well as the SCMTD Developer License Agreement below.
Feed Documentation
GTFS Schedule: gtfs.org/schedule/reference
GTFS Realtime: gtfs.org/realtime/reference