The area of keeping passengers informed has advanced well beyond simply telling people when the next train will arrive.
While it first appeared at the show two years ago, displays on Siemens trans that show where the least crowded cars are located on the train were being shown this year too. One of the Siemens engineers said “Of course, the display is not very useful unless it displays the information on the platform before the train gets there. However, the operator is still working on installing the infrastructure to support that.”
The particular trains equipped with this display will be entering service for Southwest Trains services out of London starting in 2017.
Passenger information displays are, in fact, a significant part of the public transportation part of the show. There is some really interesting stuff going on in the area of passenger information technology. What we have seen so far in the USA is only a tiny piece of what is available.
Glenn Laubaugh (“Glenn in Portland”) is part of the engineering staff at a small company in Portland that builds electrical equipment for railroad passenger cars.
Even the buses on display (as well as those I have ridden in the city) have a really nice LCD display showing the next several stops.
That sounds nice. I really like the screens added to some of the buses now (telling you where the next stop is). But listing several stops after that would be great.