Airport_Business_February-March_2020 - 12

DIGITAL SIGNAGE
AUTHOR Joe Petrie

A BRIGHT NEW FUTURE IN

Digital Signage

Emerging technology makes world-class signage a
reality for airports of all sizes.
DALLAS FORT Worth International Airport (DFW)
recently upgraded its signage at TSA security
checkpoints from static to digital signage. The airport
wanted to be proactive addressing information to
travelers at the checkpoints to help them understand
wait times.
Julio Badin, senior vice president
of customer experience for DFW,
said security queues are a stressful
experience of the traveler's journey,
so the airport wanted take steps to
reduce concerns.
"We saw an opportunity to be able
to provide our customers additional
information to make decisions to
improve that experience," he said.
"Four out of our five terminals have
three checkpoints and they're within
walking distance of each other."
Daniel Wheeler, senior account
manager for DVLED at LG, said, the
information allows the airport to
direct travelers away from one security
checkpoint gate to a less busy one to
address wait times.
DFW considered LCD and LED
signage for the area. LED has a lack
of seams and doesn't have glare from
a glass panel.
"The main content in that area is
mainly text-based so LED was a great
solution," Wheeler said. "Although
LED is great at video, it has real clear,
crisp text and it offers additional
brightness where LCD the glare will
sometimes remove that brightness."
B a d i n s a i d t h e DV L E D
videoboards have brightness and
ability to display across a landscape and

avoid the issues of displaying across
multiple monitors. They opted for
the 1.89 pixel pitch in the monitors,
because DFW preferred the aesthetic
look.
"If there is an issue with a couple
of LEDs going out, you just replace
one thing pretty quickly," Badin said.
LED has a 100,000 hour lifespan to
half brightness, which is about double
that of a standard LCD panel, Wheeler
said.
"It should last twice as long as than
LCD and it's also a brighter solution,"
he said.
The signs DFW used are direct
view LED, with the exception of
Terminal C where Badin said they
opted for LCD while the airport
determines the future renovations to
the facility.
The LED signs directly replaced
all the static signage. Some were
mounted to the walls, others hung
from the ceiling and others were
double sided blade signs, which hang
from a cantilever from a pole.
"You can maintain the same
visual and the same pixel pitch, but
conf igure the cabinets in different
ways," Wheeler said. "That also gives
you a uniform look for all your signage
throughout the entire airport."

12 \ AIRPORTBUSINESS / FEBRUARY/MARCH 2020

The big gest cha l lenge wa s
installing the signs after hours during
low traffic f lows. Mount providers
had to work around other installed
items like fire sprinklers and do load
calculations. Each installation was
done in three phases, which lasted
about a week each.
All of the installations finished on
time despite an expedited timeline.
"In one of the phases there were
so many signs to install that we ran
two separate crews because it was two
separate terminals being installed at
the same time," Wheeler said. "But
by the end of it, we were recreating
the same thing we had done before."
T he f i n a l i n st a l l at ion wa s
completed in July.
Airport_Business_February-March_2020

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