Digital Sign technology extended to more bus stations in London
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State-of-the-art real-time digital information screens now installed at five bus stations and Victoria Coach station
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Latest improvements build on TfL and the Mayor’s commitment to make London’s transport network even more accessible
Transport
for London (TfL) has announced today that five bus stations and
Victoria Coach station are now being served by state-of-the-art
real-time digital information
screens, or Digital Sign technology.
The
‘Bus Station Digital Sign’ is a TfL service which displays TfL’s live
bus arrival information for multiple routes serving stops at bus
stations. The information
displayed is the same as on all other TfL Live Bus Arrivals services
and includes details of service disruptions affecting local routes to
the bus station.
Having
all of this information set out clearly and in one place will make it
much easier for passengers to navigate their way around large
interchanges and make an
informed choice of route for their destination. Nine of these screens
have been installed in total with two signs in Harrow, Walthamstow and
North Greenwich bus stations and one sign in Vauxhall, East Croydon,
Victoria Coach station.
Digital
Sign technology is being introduced to bus stations because they are
key interchange environments, where it is often more complex to display
bus arrival information
than at standard bus stops due to the number of routes and bus stops
converging. Together with Trueform, TfL has developed a means of
displaying the sign in a robust, secure and weather proofed structure
that is fit for purpose in exposed environments.
Simon Reed,
TfL’s Head of Technical Services Group, said: “The Digital Sign
technology is part of TfL’s continued commitment to make London’s
transport network even
more accessible by giving up-to-date and clear travel information to
our passengers.”
Jonathan
Morley, Trueform’s Group Managing Director, said: “Trueform has been
working closely with TfL on the development of digital totems, stops and
shelters and
has successfully completed a number of installations throughout
London. We look forward to continuing with this work by installing
these at more sites, and in parallel, continuing with the development
and production of more digital totem, bus shelter and
bus stop products for TfL’s customers to benefit from.”
Canada Water and Hatton Cross are the next stations to get these Digital Signs installed with dates to be confirmed soon.
In
2011, TfL delivered its Countdown system enabling passengers to access
bus arrival information for every one of the 19,500 bus stops across
around 700 bus routes
in London, via the internet and mobile phones. This service was
complemented by 2,500 new on-street Countdown signs, supplied and funded
by TfL, which provide bus arrival information at bus stops in London.
Live
bus arrival information is also available in the public domain through a
documented, scalable application program interface (API), enabling
third party developers
to develop Smartphone apps as well as many other innovative products.