Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Silver Line passengers rushing from the airport to downtown Boston may start to worry less about bus arrivals than they did in the past.
The MBTA installed new LED signs on the Silver Line that display real-time bus information to passengers at Logan Airport, MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said.
As a part of the improvements, the MBTA will also install a push button for audio information and will move the CharlieCard machines to the curbside, Pesaturo said.
Josh Robin, the MBTA’s director of innovation and special projects, said he got the idea for the LED signs when he visited the Philadelphia International Airport.
Similar signs already exist there, Robin said.
“They have these signs in the Philadelphia airport that show how frequently a train comes and goes,” Robin said. “I took photos of them. Part of my role as director of innovations and special projects is to [find innovations].”
Robin then shared the images with Richard Davey, the secretary of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, he said.
His proposal received an “extremely favorable” response, Robin said.
Logan, he said, is one of the largest airports so close to the city it serves. Getting to Boston from the airport is “very easy.”
But before the signs were installed, Robin said, it was not particularly easy to get from within Logan into downtown Boston.
“My point is that the Silver Line comes every couple of minutes and we have real-time information,” Robin said. “Why don’t we put that info on a sign in Logan?”
As a “very small pilot project,” the LED signs are “part of [the MBTA’s] efforts to do small things to improve customer service,” he said.
Massachusetts Port Authority will cover the majority of the cost, Robin said, and the project itself will be “low-cost.”
The first LED sign was installed in Terminal C at Boston Logan Airport in January and received positive feedback.
“Once [the LED sign] got out there, people were so excited that we found more signs,” he said.
All terminals had the signs as of Sunday, Robin said, each of them in full high-definition.
The costs will be marginal for the T because the MBTA already owned the LED signs that are being installed.
“Most of the costs were installation,” Robin said. “The costs are about a couple of thousand of dollars, which is a tremendous value for customers.”
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
This is a cool use of the LED technology. We should offer custom neon signs like that to cities. Nicely done!