iGirouette Digital Street Signs Get First Rollout In Lyon. France

November 22, 2017 by Dave Haynes

If you’ve been at ISE in Amsterdam the last couple of years, and particularly the 2017 version, you will likely have noticed digital directional signs that are a bit of a hybrid of a street sign post and a wayfinding system.

It’s a system I thought was really interesting, but wondered if there were real buyers out there for what is called iGirouette. The company behind the system is based in Lyon, France, and as it turns out, that’s where the units are seeing their first public rollout.

Via ITS International:

Igirouette has partnered with the City of Lyon to install 15 of its connected and rotating smart signage devices to provide urban environment navigation as well as improve the flow of people and transport in France’s first WWF-labelled eco-district, Lyon

Initially, iGirouette will display general information: sports and cultural events, distances (e.g. to the Confluence museum or Perrache train station), directions to the Youth Centre and exhibition spaces. There are also plans, via open data, for the system to provide parking space availability, or bus and train schedules. 

ISE Stand (think from 2015)

The system consists of a mast with two arrows which can rotate 360 degrees and interact with individuals, providing directions and as well as the time and distance to a specific event or place, through text and still or animated images.

Messages can be programmed using secure servers and displayed on an iGirouette or a whole network of devices. The information is disseminated in real time and can relate to a city, an event, a shopping centre, a business park, a transport network, an exhibition or leisure centre.

Igirouette can also interact with users who connected through the mobile app, by guiding them toward events.

I like these things, though I do wonder how they’d do in climates more harsh than Lyon, and if they’d survive a late Saturday night after the bars clear and the lagered-up boys are loose in, let’s say, Glasgow or Dublin. Or pretty much anywhere.

They make more sense to me in large footprint, climate and security controlled venues like airports, train stations and mega shopping malls.

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