Electric Signs

Heathrow Airport Installs LED Railway-Tunnel Advertising

SideTrack’s system engages railway passengers with what appears to be video ads.

Published

16 years ago

January 24, 2008

Jacob Rieskamp Signs of the Times January 2008 Issue

SideTrack Technologies (Winnipeg, MB, Canada) has completed its first, LED, tunnel-advertising display in the railway tunnels at London’s Heathrow Airport. LED tubes have been installed in tunnels, and, as trains pass, show what appears to be a video ad. Images from the railway walls project onto the carriage windows.

For example, SideTrack posts ad copy from an advertiser, FIAT 500, from Winnipeg, and the copy and images appear nearly 4,000 miles away.

SideTrack delivers a 15-second advertisement, which lights up the dark tunnel walls as the trains pass the display locations. In London, 360 individual LED bars have been installed along a 450-meter stretch of tunnel from the airport to London’s Paddington Station, creating an advertising display nearly half a kilometer in length.

The digital format offers flexibility in the frequency of creative changes and makes it possible for multiple ads per hour to be seen by different target audiences. Initial clients of the new digital medium include Unicef, Microsoft and Fiat.

In addition to London, SideTrack systems are in place, being constructed or in engineering review stages in nine cities: Boston; San Francisco; Los Angeles; New York City; Toronto; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Mexico City; and Monterrey, Mexico.

Related Topics:Electric Signs January 2008

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