The Kansas City Area Transportation Authority’s (KCATA) new Prospect MAX stations, located throughout downtown Kansas City, are expected to be completed by the end of November and will feature KCATA’s latest investments in smart transit technologies that will help to reduce the authority’s carbon footprint at a maintenance and operations level.
Each MAX bus rapid transit (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 information, 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 Wi-Fi to riders via Cradlepoint routers.
Governing all the devices at the new 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. Our 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,” said Jenni Evans, vice president of 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.”
