January 28, 2013 – CHK America President and CEO, Rick Wood announced today that the company has completed the redesign of Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s (WMATA) system wide public transit maps. The system maps have been released by WMATA and are now in circulation with the transit riding public.

WMATA, “America’s Transit System,” is one of the largest, most complex transit systems in the United States. CHK America developed the system maps using a combined frequency approach that included designing individual regional network maps for the District of Columbia, the Maryland counties of Montgomery and Prince George’s, and Virginia. These regional maps easily identify the high frequency corridors used by hundreds of thousands of daily commuters and travelers. A useful tool included with each map is a summary frequency table, which provides customers an overview of all bus services available in that region. Lastly, a combined framework map is located on the reverse of each regional map to highlight how the regional services work together to provide high frequency service throughout the entire operating area.

“Developing system maps of this magnitude, crossing two states and the District of Columbia was an immensely challenging project. Metro’s service area and network complexity presented a number of unique variables,” commented CHK America President and CEO, Rick Wood. “Our wayfinding and design experts are the best in the business when it comes to translating complex transit information into consumer-friendly and easy to use information.”

CHK America and WMATA are leading the way for other transit agencies across the nation, demonstrating with this project that even the most complicated transit systems can be communicated in a way that makes the system easy to understand for all customers, whether daily riders or first time passengers.

CHK, America – Established in 1999, CHK America is the premier best practice provider of customer information solutions for the US public transportation industry. The company’s 8 Second Rule, has set the standard for communicating complex public transit information to customers, after their research identified that customers allow only eight seconds in which to interpret travel information before becoming frustrated – resulting in customer dissatisfaction. Under the leadership of CEO Rick Wood, a recognized speaker of and leading authority in wayfinding strategies, CHK America now reaches over 2 billion, fully 20%, of public transportation customers in the United States. Between customized information design and purpose-built hardware fabrications, CHK America is providing solutions for many of the largest multi-modal transit agencies in the US from WMATA in Washington DC to DART in Dallas Texas to LA Metro in Los Angeles, California.