Hat Tip to Craig Keefner, who runs the Kiosk Manufacturer Association, and has a detailed post up about the digital signage built into upgrades at the sprawling airport in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
I did a post last month about four large LG LED displays in the terminal, but Keefner adds a lot more detail as well as links and photos to other new displays added to the terminal – including an interesting application of what the airport calls digital medallions.
Round LED displays have been around for a few years now, and there’s not been a lot of evidence of them being used beyond demos at trade shows. But the Twin Cities airport is using them both outside at drop-off areas and inside in the departures/check-in area for locating passenger services.
It’s not clear when these went in or the manufacturer of these specialty displays, but they’re part of an impressive range of screens and content applications around the airport. There’s a lot of what might be called boring digital signage – largely data-driven screens that start informing travelers and anyone else using the airport about where to go, what to do, what’s open or closed, how long things like screen will take, and so on. It’s not the sort of thing that will get people excited if they like Wow Factor. This stuff just does a job.
The medallions (“moons” is also used as a reference) appear to be used in the terminal by Delta Airlines, which has MSP as one its main US hubs. I did a podcast last spring with Delta’s Ryan Taylor, who manages what are inarguably the most ambitious and creative digital signage set-ups in U.S. airports.
The curbside moons look to be for common use across multiple airlines and for multiple needs.
There’s a bunch of pix here, as well …
As noted in the past, if you want to get a sense of locations where digital signage is pervasive and stitched deeply into the everyday operations of a business or facility, look at renovated or expanded airports – not only in the US but globally. Yes, there are screens on a mass scale in places like Qatar, but a lot of airports are also using data from airport management systems to push simple information to screens that just relay the basics about the many processes needed to get from the curbside to departure gates.