Metro News Release

For immediate release: April 1, 2011

Metro launches retail at Smithsonian Metrorail station


Old Town Trolley Tours starts selling tour ride tickets

Old Town Trolley Tours is the first of two companies that will sell its services and products from Metrorail stations as part of licensing agreements that the Metro Board of Directors approved last year.

Representatives of Old Town Trolley Tours will be at the Smithsonian Metrorail station starting today, April 1, selling tickets for tour rides on its green and orange trolley buses that provide sightseeing tours of Washington’s monuments and other points of interest. They will be on hand from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. seven days a week. Ticket sales/information booths are expected to be constructed in the near future at each station entrance.

“We see the addition of retail opportunities as an enhancement and convenience for both regular commuter customers and the millions of visitors who rely on Metro to see the nation’s capital,” said Metro General Manager and CEO Richard Sarles.

Metro’s Board of Directors approved license agreements last June with Old Town Trolley Tours to place booths at Smithsonian Metrorail station and with Movie Solution to place DVD rental machines in 10 Metrorail stations.

This summer Metro riders can expect to see the DVD machines at the Farragut North, Farragut West, Foggy Bottom-GWU, Gallery Pl-Chinatown, L’Enfant Plaza, Metro Center, New Carrollton, Rosslyn, Shady Grove and Union Station Metrorail stations.

In exchange for use of the Metrorail system for the sale of tour tickets and rental of movies, Metro will receive an estimated $880,000 over an eight-year period.

News release issued at 2:15 pm, April 1, 2011.