Barcelona Metro installs dynamic advertising system in line tunnel 5

For this first experience carried out in Barcelona, a section of 160 meters where they have been placed 300 LED bars, spaced to 52 cm. of distance between them and connected to a control panel and other equipment located in a communications room at the Hospital Clínic station.

Metro de Barcelona (TMB) has installed a new advertising stand inside the tunnel of the line 5. Este permite que las imágenes se visualicen desde el interior de los trenes y permite la reproducción de vídeos cortos de forma sincronizada con el paso de los convoyes.

It is a technological solution based on LED screens, that has been supplied by the firm Adtrack Media with the support of Telephone, which opens a new avenue for obtaining additional revenues that contribute to the sustainability of public transport. An experience that, as published in Digital AV Magazine, it was already launched three years ago in Madrid.

The system has become operational on the section of the line 5, between Hospital Clínic and Diagonal, direction Vall d'Hebron, and in the coming months it will be deployed in two more sections pending to be determined. Locations are being chosen in the central sector of the lines with a higher utilization that at the same time meet the appropriate technical conditions for the installation. When all three sections are in operation, it is estimated that the economic return for TMB will be, at least, of 214.000 euros per year.

To make the display of advertising possible, a set of columns of LEDs that reproduce the clips is fixed to the wall of the tunnel, ten seconds long, so that from inside the trains they are perceived as a single video screen. As in the cinema, the human eye interprets the chaining of fixed frames as a single animated image, with the difference that, on the subway, the movement of people mounted on the train replaces the movement of the film.

For the first installation of dynamic advertising in the Barcelona metro, a section of 160 meters where it has been analyzed that trains run at a stable speed, of some 53 kilometers per hour, to ensure the optical effect of video playback. In total they have been placed 300 LED bars, spaced to 52 centimeters of distance between them and connected to a control panel and other equipment located in a communications room at the Hospital Clínic station.

For optimal viewing, the video being played has a high definition resolution and is refreshed to a cadence of 30 frames per second. In this way, the implemented system offers an image quality and a fit to the size of the window superior to those provided by similar systems in other networks.

For TMB, the professional and orderly management of advertising in the different media of its networks is one of the sources of non-tariff income through which the dependence on the rates and subsidies of the public administrations for the sustenance of public transport in the Barcelona area is reduced.. The promotion and diversification of this type of income is one of the strategic lines of the company, that has managed to elevate them a 31% between 2012 and 2018.

Other articles on Adtrack Media, Telephone, TMB