Live Touch, Australia’s first out-of-home information and content touchscreen platform developed by the world’s leading out-of-home company, JCDecaux, has seen strong consumer take-up and usage since its launch in May this year.
Phase one of Sydney city’s Live Touch launch sees 26 touchscreens now in operation throughout the CBD. A wider scale transformation will follow, with more than 15 additional screens to be installed in Sydney’s CBD.
Live Touch features four key apps: Photo, with images and information for main Sydney attractions; Weather and forecasts; Maps with points of interest, retail directions and transport links as well as a QR code so consumers can save transport routes to their smartphones; and arrows at the bottom of the screen to reorder apps to enable easy access for those who may be in a wheelchair.
Since May, Sydney-siders and local and international visitors have recorded 1,610 hours of usage of Live Touch, 55,720 app starts and a 1:59 minutes average time on an app, which is increasing every week.
“We have created Live Touch as part of JCDecaux’s ongoing commitment to enriching Australia’s urban environments. The touchscreens are fully customisable to meet partner and community requirements,” JCDecaux CEO Steve O’Connor said.
“Reserved for community information and connectivity in the city, Live Touch has been really well received by the public and offer fantastic opportunities for expansion of services for the Government and the community.”
Phase two of Live Touch will see another 15 in early 2017. The capability of Live Touch could be expanded for such services as real time transport and safety information, transport timetables, cultural events and live content screening.
The Live Touch screens form part of JCDecaux’s Digital Citylight screen structures, which have been lighting up the city of Sydney sice their launch in May. The 84 inch ultra high definition screens, the largest of their kind in Australia, appear on the reverse side of Live Touch. Citylights have been embraced by advertisers and there has also been a number of media firsts. For example, a news.com.au campaign uses an RSS feed, via JDecaux’s Smart Content proprietary content management system, to display live headlines on the screens.
JCDecaux has pioneered the Live Touch concept around the world and it is now in nine countries in Europe and Great Britain, plus six states in the US, Panama, Japan, Israel, Singapore and United Arab Emirates.
“The options to expand information on Live Touch are endless as we work with City of Sydney to help transform Sydney into a leading smart city. It’s well known that Sydney-siders are savvy, early adopters of technology and this is just the start as we weave technology into the fabric of the city,” O’Connor said.
JCDecaux is known around the world as leaders in innovation and in the development of smart city products including self service bicycles now being electrically assisted with portable batteries, the intergration of telecommunications facitilities into street furniture, and the biggest array of digital adverting screens that engage the community.
In Paris, experimental concept designs include bus shelters with news feeds, defibrillators, 72 inch village screens for advertising and public information, a wheelchair accessible touch screen and USB sockets to charge phones. Other designs include a self-maintaining plant covered roof on street furniture structures, public park digital play tables with touchscreens and electronic local jobs boards in suburbs.
