Imagine riding your bus or train to work. You’re a bit bored and a little distracted as you need to keep checking your watch and listening for the station announcements to be sure you don’t miss your stop. Looking around you see a paper advertisement promoting a recently renovated auto museum. You’re not sure where it is but you assume it must be near the train you’re travelling on — or is it?
Now reimagine the same scenario, but this time you look up and see a bright digital display. The first thing you notice is that it is already easier to see. The bottom of the screen shows a moving map of your current location along with a list of the next three station stops and projected arrival times. You relax as you determine that your stop is still quite away off. Suddenly an icon lights up on the map right next to the upcoming station. The icon opens a window that fills the screen and begins to play a commercial promoting the newly renovated auto museum. You make a mental note that it is just a few blocks walk from the station as you become more engrossed at the exciting images of classic cars in the museum. The museum hours flash across the screen — it’s still open several hours after you get off work and you could easily stop by right on the way home. The onscreen map updates again as you pass the next station and now your stop is third on the upcoming stations list list with a projected arrival in 17 minutes. May as well go ahead and check for new emails at the office for an early start on your workday — you have plenty of time.
Moving from a paper world to a new digital experience onboard public transit may seem at first to be just a lot of flash with associated maintenance requirements but if you compare the differences between the two passenger experiences described above — it becomes obvious that the digital experience is transformational.
The digital experience can provide dynamic updates to information needed by the passenger to reduce anxiety thus allowing the passenger to relax and refocus their attention on other concerns. Advertising becomes more effective and passengers can make actually make use of the time in transit to accomplish other tasks. The potential to arrive at their destination with less stress with a jump on their daily tasks completely changes the start of each new day. The likelihood that the passenger will repeat their use of transit while also spreading positive word-of-mouth regarding their experience is powerful. The potential for generating additional advertising revenue increases as digital display technology allows for more ads for a given footprint onboard the vehicle.
The potential for even greater use of targeted display content based on geographic proximity is almost unlimited. For example, the language could change based on the demographics of the neighborhood being passed. Special service alerts for abducted children could also be targeted in the areas they were last seen. Information for connecting transit services could be displayed with predicted connection times.
The future for digital display technology — especially when combined with onboard GPS trackers and cellular connectivity — is bright (pun intended). The potential to convey real-time travel information to passengers to assist and support them during their journey can be transformational. For driverless autonomous vehicles of the near future, this technology may actually even be mandatory. The time to plan is now.
Doug Anderson is the director of ITS with Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. A native-born Californian, he was hired in response to a board motion made by Los Angeles Mayor and Board President Eric Garcetti for the creation of a strategic technology department to advance new technologies focused on improving the customer experience in transit. Currently, Anderson is exploring outreach to transit customers via a number of technologies including equipping the fleet of vehicles with Wi-Fi and digital displays, adding a social media component to the mobile trip planner and adopting ibeacons for use in wayfinding and gamification applications.
He serves on the Digital Signage Expo Advisory Board and will be co-presenting the 30-minute webinar, “Enhancing the Transit Customer Experience with Digital Signage,” on Thursday, January 18 at 2pm, EST. Registration is free, but required.
