Buses in Istanbul, Turkey
Over the past a couple of years, Istanbul made and exerted its plan to gradually modernize its city bus information publication system by installing DSM80 system to over 4,000 buses. Betvis provided its bus-dedicated digital signage players to support the city’s ambition from the very beginning and continuously took charge of the system update and maintenance ever since the first 1,000 players were deployed.
Back to the old days, buses in Istanbul don’t have any information publication or media advertising system at all. Passengers simply got on a bus and let it take them somewhere, without even a little bit up-to-date information or entertainment to have during the long ride. If the driver want to make an alert or send a message to passengers, he or she might have to yell really loud to get attention, and the result was not really good at all. For any media company who wanted to conduct an advertising campaign on the bus, they have to send out lots of employees to install physical posters or boards in every single bus. Usually those posters will stay there forever until being damaged and disappeared without arising any attention from the passengers. Basically everyone hoped that things could get more intelligent on their buses.
Betvis bus digital signage player is specially made for digital content release on bus. Integrated with built-in 3G module and Wi-Fi connection, all digital content can be deployed and updated via Internet, saving all the previous manual work. Meanwhile, the player has both HDMI output and VGA output, allowing it to be connected with most mainstream screens in any mainstream resolution, mostly 1080p full high definition display. Also, multiple channels can be brought into the content, including live TV programs from several Istanbul TV channels. Passengers now can watch morning news and weather forecast on their seats during their morning commuting time. Advertising companies can insert their ads into live TV intervals or at the side area of the screen. The advertisements helped to make some extra revenue for the bus company and helped to pay off the investigation of the digital signage system even faster.
Another highlight of the system is its driver announcement function. Drivers used to yell at the passengers to get attention, in a way which doesn’t sound very well. Betvis helped to optimize the situation by adding a couple of end-to-end speakers into the system. When the driver wants to say something, he can simply press a button to send a voice message and display the message on screen. This helps to keep a good order within bus and to prevent people from missing an important message.