Mediapro, Telefónica and TMB: first augmented reality project over 5G on a tour bus

called 5G Augmented Tourism, this project that is tested in two tourist buses that travel the mountain of Montjuïc (Barcelona), allows users to display content on an interactive transparent screen superimposed on the landscape or monuments in real time.

Companies Mediapro Group, Telephone and Metropolitan Transport of Barcelona (Transports Metropolitans – TMB) have developed 5G Augmented Tourism, the first 5G augmented reality project that allows passengers of a tourist bus to visualize immersive content in the front window of the vehicle, superimposed on the landscape or monuments they observe while touring.

The project 5G Augmented Tourism was presented yesterday during a tour of the mountain of Montjuïc (Barcelona) in which the users of the Barcelona Tourist Bus (BBT) of TMB have been able to live a different tourist experience, enhanced thanks to augmented reality content with data and information of the places that are traveled.

The new 5G mobile networks allow the download in real time of geolocated content associated with the places through which the tourist route passes. These augmented contents are displayed on a transparent and interactive screen, located in the front window of the vehicle, so that rich and interactive multimedia content is superimposed on the reality that is observed through the glass.

As a result,, users can see Montjuïc fountains on (even if it is not the time of the function) and get information about buildings, monuments or places they are passing through at that time: from the old amusement park and the Olympic area to navigate between the CaixaFòrum exhibitions and the works of the Lliure Theatre or the Flower Market… and all this in motion.

This pilot, developed within the framework of the 5GBarcelona initiative, demonstrates how the generation of content in augmented reality on 5G in mobility offers new scenarios of content consumption and entertainment, beyond the devices that are now known.

Thanks to connected vehicles and high mobile connectivity, it is now possible to offer this type of experience to public transport passengers., whereas, in the future, the autonomous car will also open a wide range of possibilities for the consumption of content in mobility within the cars themselves.

contents, networks and mobility

Each of the parties has contributed their experience to the pilot. Like this, the Mediapro Group has designed the experience, selected and generated all the tourist information of the key points and developed the software and the contents of augmented reality. It has also been responsible for the installation of state-of-the-art transparent screens on the two tourist buses..

For its part, Telefónica has arranged a high-speed 5G network that provides large downstream and upstream bandwidths, which allows the improvement of the quality of the contents, the massification of consumption in mobility, hyperlocal content, as well as real-time broadcasts.

likewise, by residing intelligence and content at the edge of the network (capacity Edge Computing) reduces the cost for devices that consume such content, becoming a more scalable solution. Edge Computing is a new capacity of the networks that improves latency and allows to have content, Applications, computing and artificial intelligence close to the user who consumes it.

For its part, TMB has enabled two tourist buses to make possible the use of this technology. In this way, new possibilities are explored so that the tourist and cultural experience of the BBT is added to other attractions, as those that allow to enrich, thanks to augmented reality, a greater knowledge of the environment through which the journey on board is taking place.

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