A billboard across from Fenway Park on Lansdowne Street now displays real-time public transportation schedules and bicycle sharing availability, according to Ryan Croft, the COO and co-founder of TransitScreen, the software company that manages the billboard information’s display.
Croft said the display aims to make transportation information more accessible to commuters.
“The way we look at it is, not everybody knows what apps to use and sometimes you don’t have service or your phone’s dead,” Croft said. “If you want to compare multiple modes of transportation, it’s not that easy on a small cellphone.”
The display includes a slideshow of real-time information for trains, buses and bikes, as well as paid advertisements that loops every 15 seconds, Croft said.
Thousands of similar TransitScreen displays are available in more than cities in the United States, including Paris, Dublin, London and Toronto, Croft said.
Joe Pesaturo, the spokesperson for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, wrote in an email that the MBTA did not partner with TransitScreen in organizing the display.
“There is no formal partnership,” Pesaturo wrote. “Like hundreds of app developers and others, TransitScreen has access to the MBTA’s open data for bus and train arrivals. Keeping people informed about service schedules is the best way to promote the use of public transportation.”
Orange Barrel Media, the owner of the billboard, partnered with TransitScreen in sourcing data onto the screen, according to Orange Barrel Media CEO Pete Scantland.
“We are always looking for ways that we can create relevant compelling content to place on our screens, and one of the really obvious ones was showing transit information,” Scantland said. “Time updates, arrival and departure information, directions to the nearest station — and we came across TransitScreen in our research, and they were clearly the leader in that space, so we partnered with them to source the data that’s now displaying on our screens.”
Scantland said the billboard is located at a strategic spot where people can notice its display easily.
“One of the interesting things about that board is with baseball and other events that are held at Fenway Park, you have a very acute need to get people to use public transportation,” Scantland said. “There’s also a very young local population who are already high users of transit, so we thought it would be a very good place for our pilot.”
Richard Giordano, the community organizing director of Fenway Community Development Corporation, said the billboard, as long as it is visually appealing, will be beneficial and convenient for the community.
“The only thing around right now, are apps that third parties have produced regarding transit schedules,” Giordano said. “But you have to download those and you have to have a smart phone, so I think this would be a good addition.”
Several Boston residents said they are pleased to see public transportation data on a billboard, lauding its practicality.
Jean Binjour, 38, of Hyde Park, said she was surprised to see that the billboard not only displayed T schedules, but bus schedules as well.
“That’s awesome,” she said. “I don’t like the T, but this is good for my students who take the bus.”
Andrea Mendes, 23, of Brighton, said the public transportation data should be displayed longer in order for passers-by to grasp the information.
“That’s really helpful, but I think it should be displayed for a little bit longer,” she said. “But if you’re just walking down the street, you can see if you have five minutes to get to where you need to be.”
Matthew Heller, 59, of the South End, said although he would not benefit off of the billboard, it would still be useful for tourists.
“I sort of know [the MBTA schedule], and I search online I guess when I need a set train, but that’s only Amtrak; for the MBTA, I just show up,” he said. “Maybe they built it for tourists who don’t know where the stations are.”
Dave Sebastian and Till Kaeslin contributed to the reporting of this article.