KCATA Reduces Carbon Footprint with Digital Wayfinding and SmartLink Remote Management

Kansas City, MO | The Kansas City Area Transportation Authority joins a growing number of transit agencies in reducing their carbon footprint at a maintenance and operations level. The new Prospect MAX stations, located throughout downtown Kansas City, are expected to be completed by the end of November 2019 and will feature KCATA’s latest investments in “smart transit” technologies.

Each MAX BRT station will feature a newly designed passenger waiting shelter, manufactured by Decamil, an integrated wayfinding kiosk, and/or a freestanding digital totem.  The wayfinding kiosks, manufactured by REDYREF, provide interactive trip-planning and real-time departure info, eliminating the need for printed maps and schedules. The kiosks feature a capacitive LCD touchscreen, speakers, a microphone, webcam, and an ADA compliant text-to-speech button for audio announcements.

The freestanding digital totem features the MAX station’s name with LED illumination, and a two-sided REDYREF LCD display that provides next-departure times and ridership alerts.

All Prospect MAX vehicles and stations will offer free WIFI to riders via Cradlepoint routers.

Governing all the devices at the MAX stations is a SmartLink management controller, provided by OutdoorLink, Inc. The SmartLink remotely monitors the performance of each device, sends outage alerts to KCATA when devices lose power or connectivity, and provides the ability to reboot them to restore service. Each device operates on its own schedule, which can be changed remotely at any time by KCATA through the SmartLink portal.

“Adding digital devices to transit stops often leads to an increase in time and costs spent to maintain them. SmartLink controllers provide the ability to remotely manage and backup these assets, so we’re able to resolve device downtime quickly and reduce the need for site visits,” says Jenni Evans, VP, Transit Solutions for OutdoorLink. “It’s a simple solution for managing devices at hundreds of stops, and we’re proud to help clients create more sustainable and scalable operations.”

For more details on this project or the technologies referenced, contact Doug Pew with OutdoorLink at doug@outdoorlinkinc.com.