Sydney’s New Metro Line Dotted With E-Paper Information Signs
May 29, 2019 by Dave Haynes
The first 36 kilometers of Australia’s biggest public transport project, the newly-opened Sydney Metro Northwest line, are interspersed with stops that provide steadily updated schedule/status information on solar-powered e-paper screens.
Installed from Tallawong to Chatswood, 50 urban bus stops – the biggest deployment of these smart signs anywhere in the world – show interchange bus departure times at each metro station, connecting via 4G.
Each screen is waterproof and tamper-resistant, using two tiled 13-inch electronic paper screens. Because it is e-paper, the screens need no backlight during the day and use a front-light for uninterrupted visibility at night, powered by a solar cell.
The solar aspect of this achieves a few things:
- The stops are completely independent from the city’s electrical network;
- No trenching or power/networking cables needed, which is usually big $$$;
- They go in with a handful of nuts and bolts.
The signs are designed by Mercury Innovation and powered by the Slovenian firm Visionect, which with Mercury was already providing e-paper update screens to Sydney’s transport system, in what looks like a test around the downtown town hall.
E-paper information signs are a good way to provide transport timings, routes, & nearby stations. I think it would have been better if the digital display screens have used instead of E-paper signs as digital signage provides more flexibility in displaying information with more options like weather info, news, etc.