February 24, 2015 — CHK America CEO, Rick Wood announced today that they will continue working with the Chicago Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) as they move into phase two of the Interagency Passenger Information Design Program. This latest phase expands the signage program developed by CHK and other team members during phase one.

Drawing from its 16 years of expertise in developing customer information solutions for the public transportation industry, CHK America, in phase one, prepared the customer information products for inclusion into a comprehensive Design Guide Standards Manual for interagency signage. The standards were applied and signage was deployed at four test sites.

During phase two the signage program will be expanded to an additional 19 interagency locations. An interagency location qualifies if two or more CTA, Pace Bus or Metra services are provided at a particular location, such as a bus or rail stop. Additionally and as part of a larger team, CHK will design stop specific customer information products including Spider Maps®, neighborhood maps, train departure signage, bus stop information panels, and flags for each of the transit operators in the region.

“We are pleased to continue our work with RTA and to contribute to the second largest combined transit network in the country,” said Wood. “The experience we bring in the area of design and wayfinding will make it easier for the approximately 8.4 million residents of the greater Chicago area to maximize their use of the major transit services.”

The RTA region’s system provides more than two million rides each weekday on bus and rail services in the Northeastern Illinois region. The region’s system covers approximately 3,700 square miles. It is the second largest transit system in the country by passenger miles traveled, behind only New York, and the third largest in the country by ridership, behind only New York and Los Angeles.

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 the foremost 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.