Dallas-Area Transit System / Bus Shelter Software

Our history with DART goes back to 2015 when we designed a system that provided estimated and scheduled bus arrival and departure times to bus shelters around the city. Topped with solar panels, these shelters were equipped with a camera, 2-line LED sign, and a cell modem that communicated with DART headquarters. The LED signs can be programmed over the cell network using a relatively low-level character-based language via the modem attached to the roof. The system is capable of delivering 500 messages (to 500 signs) every 30 seconds across slow, possibly unreliable networks. The second phase of this project augmented the message scheduling module of the application to allow DART personnel the ability to send video and image advertisements to any sign that could display them. To make this work, our team developed a plug-in module for the software so that when users were configuring the advertisements for the signs, the software would display different options depending on the type of sign they selected. We also built an auditing system to track how long messages were displayed on each sign.