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Get on the bus (or train or plane) with digital signage
Take a deep dive into transit digital signage with United Airlines and the Utah Transit Authority providing insight into how the technology is being used in new, innovative ways and how the user experience can be positively impacted by digital signage in transportation use cases.
March 26, 2015 by Christopher Hall — w, t
Digital signage is everywhere in transportation applications — from flight information displays at the airport to digital advertisement screens at the bus stop to directional information kiosks at the subway station — and that trend is only continuing to take off.
So digital signage mounting and hardware provider Peerless-AV and Digital Signage Today recently took a deep dive into transit digital signage with a free, one-hour webinar, "Get on board with digital signage in transportation." In this webinar, Peerless-AV and transportation end-users United Airlines and the Utah Transit Authority provided insight into how the technology is being used in new, innovative ways and how the transportation user experience can be positively impacted by digital signage in transportation use cases.
The webinar was led by Nick Belcore, the executive vice president of Peerless-AV, and featured speakers Ron Cameron, senior technology deployment project lead for the Utah Transit Authority, and Christopher Freeman, technology architect for United Airlines.
The webinar provided a diversity of perspectives on the best way to approach digital signage in a variety of transportation settings, from outdoor signage at airports that only pilots and ground crew could see, to outdoor signage at bus and rail stops for passengers, to indoor wayfinding displays at airports, and indoor displays inside buses, trains and terminals.
At the start, Belcore made sure to stress one particularly salient point in the discussion: "Begin with the end in mind," he said, and be sure to be mindful of budgetary and other considerations and constraints.
United's Freeman talked about single-color LED displays used to inform pilots and ground crews and offered a preview of things to come with systems that can function in inclement weather so planes aren't sitting on the tarmac waiting for the weather to clear enough to make it safe for ground crews to guide planes in to their gates.
He also warned about deployments he's seen at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport using consumer-grade indoor displays in an outdoor setting, that are lucky to get six months of life out of the displays. While it may be cheap to replace displays, he said, users also have to take into account manpower and electrical power costs to replace screens and to power screens that are dying. He said he's seen deployments that have gotten three to 10 years of service from commercial-grade outdoor displays in outdoor settings.
Some other highlights:
- The UTA's Cameron gave an overview of the LED and flat panel displays being used by his agency, and later warned participants to be sure to look for content players and software systems that are flexible.
- Freeman talked about United using LCD displays for wayfinding, including one that will scan a traveler's ticket and direct them to the appropriate gate for their flight.
- Freeman also talked about the "breaking point" in the decision-making process between using LCDs and video walls or using the newer modular LED displays available on the market. One deployment was looking at a planned 64 LCD-screen, ceiling-hung video wall with a total weight of close to 4 tons. But with LED displays the weight ended up being closer to 1,800 pounds, which is easier to install, safer and easier to service.
- Cameron talked about high-brightness displays in both indoor and outdoor applications needing to have ambient light sensors that can automatically dim the displays in lower-light situations, so the screens aren't brighter or drawing more power than necessary at those times.
- Cameron also talked about the dangers of using indoor displays in outdoor applications. "You need to be thoughtful and careful and very inquisitive and curious about the kind of display panels that you use," he said.
- Belcore noted that the industry is divided over whether its brightness or contrast ration that is most important in outdoor and high-brightness applications. According to him, it's an optimal combination of both.
- The UTA uses more flat panel displays indoors in employee-facing applications than it currently does in customer-facing applications.
- Cameron again said he could not stress enough that potential end-users should look at systems that could be flexible or used by other departments within an organization in different ways.
- He also warned to be sure to have something that could be replaced or could easily have parts of it replaced in three to five years as new technology comes on line without the need to remove or replace entire systems. "We try to stay away from proprietary systems," he said. "You get hurt if you don't."
Finally, right before a quick question-and-answer session that looked at such topics as surge suppression, GPS-based digital signage content and best practices for audio in outdoor signage, Belcore referred to a study that looked at wait times and perceived wait times at airport baggage carousels.
"In short … occupied time feels shorter than unoccupied time, and the function of digital signage, in addition to ease of use and experience, is to create more occupied time for your customers — whoever they may be — so that they have a better user experience," he said. "The byproduct of that is a much happier customer; the byproduct of that for the end-user is that they're going to be able to deploy more sources of revenue to better fund their updates and in aggregate have a much better result."
Click here to watch the free, on-demand version of the webinar.
About Christopher Hall
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Peerless-AV
Peerless-AV is a leading designer and manufacturer of audio visual solutions, including award-winning outdoor displays and TVs, indoor/outdoor kiosks, video wall mounting systems, and more.
