London, U.K., 1st February 2022 – Waterloo and Victoria stations in London, two of the country’s busiest stations, have received modern Customer Information Screen (CIS) displays from Telent in a move to improve passenger experience and station safety and security.
Network Rail has contracted Telent, in partnership with vendor InfoTech, to install the new CIS displays to make information to passengers more visible. The existing mono colour were replaced with full colour LED matrix panels meaning more information can be communicated to passengers and with increased efficiency. The new displays are now the longest continuous screens on Network Rail managed stations.
This project is part of the Putting Passengers First (PPF) initiative, aiming to enhance passengers experience through improved and more flexible information provision. As well as journey times, this means COVID information, congestion and carriage capacity information provided by IoT sensors can be displayed. To bring these features in for the new year, Telent teams worked through the Christmas network shut down.
Telent’s Business Development Manager, Mark Ingham said, “with the existing screens reaching the end of their life cycle, Telent were able to provide a radical upgrade to the CIS displays which will modernise the stations with new technology and deliver immediately noticeable station improvement”.
The screens can advertise congestion, informing passengers of the relevant information in real time and providing the appropriate advice to navigate or mitigate delays. The screens also make possible a range of possibilities such as supporting sign language interpretation of public address (PA) announcements from the screen for the hard of hearing.
The introduction of full colour panels adds many options for station operators, such as a simple traffic light system to show the status of arrivals and departures. People visiting the stations can now identify the information they require at a glance and the new CIS displays have the potential to provide far more detail, presented in an aesthetically pleasing way. This also allows for covid safety announcements and other security messaging to be positioned with high visibility resulting in increased safety for all passengers and anyone who moves through the station for any reason, including picking up and dropping off visitors and station employees.
“We’re pleased to be working again with Network Rail to make even more passenger improvements as part of their upgrades work, following other recent projects such as providing free station Wi-Fi across all of Network Rails Managed Stations, which include the largest and business transport terminals in the UK”, Mark continued.
The contract was won based on Telent’s credibility, existing relationship with Network Rail and experience in the design, supply, installation and maintenance of 2,500 electronic advertising devices on London Underground.