A new full-colour information display has been installed at St Pancras International that serves all platforms including those served by East Midlands Railway, Eurostar, Govia Thameslink Railway, and Southeastern.

The display is split into the four distinct station areas providing train information appropriate for their services. The main purpose of the display is to help people find their way around the station by using colours and dynamic maps. Before designing the display, a large amount of pre-deployment research and consultancy was undertaken by its manufacturer, Infotec.

Infotec held meetings and workshops with HS1, Network Rail, Eurostar, Southeastern, East Midlands Railway and Govia Thameslink Railway to determine what presentation would be best for passengers.

Among the types of display considered were TFT, full matrix monochrome LED, and full colour LED, with the latter being because of its flexibility in terms of presentation.

Although the new display was designed and built by Infotec, it was installed by by CIS services. Measuring 21m x 1.5m and with a screen resolution of 7056 x 504 pixels, it is the UK’s second largest rail display after London Victoria.

A key challenge was to combine data from the four station operators systems into one display, and was achieved by designing the network configuration and feed management software within the display to produce what appears to be four large displays in a single display.

Infotec has deployed unique hardware and software tools to ensure resilience, including a hot backup controller, redundant power supplies, and a looped data transmission system. These provide fault tolerance and provide a high level of performance even during fault conditions.

Infotec s software and Javelin CMS system allows the station operations team to instantly change passenger information according toe operational needs, allowing staff to concentrate more on managing real time issues or incidents at the station or on the railway line.

Driving the display is Infotec s MC-CPU2 controller, which is a fully redundant controller with dual processors operating in tandem and using smart technology to talk to each other to ensure the processor is in optimum condition when driving the display.
Ethernet, 4G, or Wi-Fi can be used to input data and feed information back to the Javelin CMS system and use the it to manage the display hardware.

Passengers have reacted positively to the new display as it allows them to find their platforms far easier than previously, which is helping to prevent unnecessary crowding and taking up station staff s time with customer queries.