In an effort to promote its new tram system, cut congestion and reduce air pollution, the city of Murcia, Spain is offering a lifetime public transit pass to citizens who give up their cars. The campaign, “Mejor en Tranvía,” (Better by Tram), is an incentive to encourage the use of public transportation in the city.

Murcia’s tram system, Tranvía, opened last May and it is an 18-kilometer (11-mile) above-ground transit line. Though it only recently opened to the public, the tram has been in trial since 2007. Currently, only one line of the tram is completed, and another three lines are on the way. With Murcia’s population of 440,000 people heavily reliant on private vehicles, the tram will likely be the most useful to those living along the pre-built line, Time Magazine reports.

The lifetime public transit pass offer is the first step in Murcia’s three-layered campaign to reduce driving in the city. Since accepting cars that are debt-free and in working condition, the city has moved on to the second step in its campaign: disassembling the collected vehicles to make them “disappear.”

“Specifically, for every comment submitted via Facebook or Twitter, Mucia’s mechanics have been removing one piece of the cars in the city’s new collection, even broadcasting the effort via webcam for all to see,” Springwise reported.

The final piece in Murcia’s publicity campaign was showing the difficulty of parking downtown by…well, parking downtown. In a humorous way, the city placed cars in impossible parking spots to demonstrate the ridiculousness of what traffic has become in the city.

To complement the campaign, the city also created short video clips promoting the car-to-pass switch and highlighting the disadvantages of using private vehicles.

Would you exchange your car for a lifetime public transit pass?

Have you heard of other interesting marketing schemes to help modify transport behavior?

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