Large passenger information displays take advantage of touchscreen technology

Travellers at airports, railway stations and other transit hubs now have easy access to up-to-the-minute information at their fingertips due to the ingenuity of engineering solutions provider L.B. Foster. Its 43” INFORM range includes fixed and mobile interactive totems and wall-mounted displays. The units take advantage of Zytronic’s durable multitouch projected capacitive touch (MPCT) technology available from Display Technology Ltd.

Display Technology supplied two customised touch screen designs for L.B. Foster. Both totem and wall-mounted units are 43” in size and are needed to work indoors and outdoors in frequently unattended locations. The TFT LCDs offer a wide operating temperature with low power consumption while delivering high brightness to satisfy this need. Each has Zytronic’s ZXY500 multitouch controller to supply millisecond fast, all-weather performance. The touch sensors are created from printed 6mm thermally tempered glass with a laminated rear hard-coated polyester film, providing optimum impact resistance and anti-spalling in the event of breakage. The selected glass has an antiglare etched finish for better image visibility in direct sunlight. The touchscreens also include UV blocking and IR reducing filters to protect the underlying LCD from sunlight damage and help the overall system thermal management.

The totem and wall-mounted touchscreen units offer an unsurpassed interactive user experience irrespective of the environment and are unaffected by dirt, rain, scratches, or extreme temperatures and work even when the user is wearing gloves.

The totem also benefits from a Litemax 43” 1800 nit High Brightness TFT, which draws a low 106W power consumption, critical to maintaining the INFORM02 24hr daily battery lifecycle. When integrated with the use of a digital light sensor and controller card, this regulates brightness and power consumption within the totems in all different lighting conditions. The TFT also supports a wide operating temperature of -20C to 60C with LCD Blacking Defect Free (Hi-Tni 110C) Technology making it excellent for maintaining visibility in demanding environments. The updated Litemax LCD Module kit by Display Technology further improves the performance of INFORM02, enhancing the passenger experience.

“Zytronic’s ability to manufacture these large-format touch sensors is ideal for our low volume yet bespoke design requirements,” says Dagan Bradbury, head of Visual Comms and Structures, TEW Engineering, L.B. Foster Europe. “The anti-spall polyester film laminated to the rear of the touch sensor also means that in the unlikely event that the tempered screen is broken, it safely holds the small cubes of glass together and continues to protect the underlying display. To date, Zytronic has supplied several hundred touch sensors for our mobile totems and wall-mounted units.”