Customer Experience

Digital signage powers up transportation

The transportation industry took a big hit during COVID-19, as customers hunkered down during stay-at-home orders. However, now with the world starting to reopen, transportation is coming back and digital signage is helping.

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June 4, 2021 by Bradley Cooper — Editor, ATM Marketplace & Food Truck Operator

During COVID-19 digital signage vendors had to quickly change their strategies to deliver safety messages to displays, and that trend will not slow down as digital signage continues to adapt to the local safety situations for the transportation industry. In addition, newer technologies such as Internet of Things, contextual information and crowd monitoring will continue to make waves.

To learn more about how digital signage is impacting this industry, Digital Signage Today spoke with Neil Bron Chatwood, a solution professional at Omnivex Corp.

Q. What are some ways the transportation industry is using digital signage?

A. Digital signage has been a critical technology in the transportation sector for decades, which all started with low resolution LED boards for sharing departure times in train stations, bus terminals, airports, etc. This market is primarily driven by the display manufacturers, as their technology improves the more use cases are unlocked for public spaces. We are all familiar with screens being used for scheduling information, baggage carousels and advertising. Two trends we are seeing recently are digital signage being used to replace static, overhead wayfinding and a preference for one or two larger format displays (videowalls, etc.) as opposed 10-20 smaller screens throughout a space. Every screen should be able to perform any use case that the client requires, manually or (preferably) automatically by leveraging data integration with key systems.

Q. Is car-top signage still a trend or has it died down?

A. Vehicular digital signage in all forms has a long, turbulent history. The first in-car-nations (pun intended) were around 17 years ago. Most of these networks were unsuccessful due to the limitations of the technology available at the time — reliability was a major factor (vibrations, heat, poor air quality/ventilation).

Car-top signage specifically tends to go through cycles before disappearing again; there are many technology factors to consider and that is before ensuring the network complies with local laws around distractions to drivers. I think the technology is "there" now, small form factor computing, solid state storage, high-speed cellular connectivity, high brightness/resolution displays in non-standard aspect ratios. I see two big challenges to the success of these networks. The first is finding a client with a fleet of cars big enough to make this worthwhile. Ride sharing continues to erode the largest potential market for this use case — citywide taxi companies. Targeting ride share companies would require installing car-top units with a non-standardized model for different car shapes, sizes, etc. The second challenge is those local laws, every big city (the target market for such networks) has governance around digital signage, ensuring compliance needs the right software, programming and content. If those two challenges can be overcome car-top signage will be a huge trend.

Q. How has digital signage helped the industry during COVID-19?

A. The goal of digital signage is to drive decision making, either through a distinct call to action "buy this stuff!" or to provide contextual information "go this way to your train, it's leaving soon." With COVID-19 I think this industry is more important than ever before.

Existing clients were able to use their networks to (very quickly) change safety protocol information within minutes. In the initial months of the pandemic this speed was crucial as this information was updating several times a week. Managing social distancing became a key part of our role in public spaces throughout. Thankfully, we already had integrations in place with crowd monitoring technologies to provide real time feedback and help our clients manage the number of people within a given area. An entirely new use case already started to emerge based around screening people before entering buildings using kiosks. Some of these included temperature sensors which required integration with our products.

As vaccinations roll out, more people are starting to gather and move around their world. We have an obligation to leverage our technologies and help keep people safe.

Q. What are some of the innovations in the space?

A. The digital signage industry is an ecosystem that is reactive to supporting technologies. Milestone examples of this are cost-effective videowalls and the Internet of Things. I do not believe we have seen the milestone that COVID represents because those are still being developed and rolled out. An early contender would be computer vision/crowd monitoring and the analytics that surround it. We've been involved with several projects that take the data from these systems and provide operational dashboards along with public facing signage to drive people different routes until the number of people in a certain area is within acceptable limits. These technologies dovetail with the obligation I mentioned and will drive passenger confidence as they return to public transport.

Another innovation is passengers taking the digital signage with them on their smartphones. Passengers can connect with the digital signage system, so they do not have to stay near a screen for critical information — gate boarding procedure for aircraft is a good example. Allowing people to move away from historically crowded areas while being able to calm their nerves about missing their transport is great for everyone involved.

Q.What role does Omnivex play in transportation digital signage?

A.Omnivex has provided digital signage software, often called CMS (content management system) to the transportation sector for over 20 years. We are hardware agnostic and focus on providing a unified model for digital signage across the client's entire estate — any screen, any content, any time. Our software runs in vehicles and within terminals, stations, trackside, etc., providing a cohesive passenger experience throughout their journey. We integrate with key systems (AODB, GTFS, GPS, etc.) and offer a future proofed toolkit, ensuring we can meet the demands of clients today and 10+ years from now. The more data we connect with, the more impactful we can be on the audience's decision making. Ultimately, Omnivex is concerned with improving passenger experience and aligning ourselves with our client's digital signage goals. Due to our exposure with the digital signage ecosystem and a wide range of projects/clients, we typically evolve into technology consultants for transportation authorities, airports, etc.

About Bradley Cooper

Bradley Cooper is the editor of ATM Marketplace and Food Truck Operator. He was previously the editor of Digital Signage Today. His background is in information technology, advertising, and writing.

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