The digital bus stops have been installed around Sydney’s Town Hall, replacing traditional bus stop paper timetables. Dubbed ‘eStops’, the displays make access to travelling information and emergency notifications easier than ever before.

The digital stops provide realtime bus arrival data, as well as capacity information, service notifications and any other relevant commuter information right at the stop.

As each eStop is solar-powered, the display is not only simple to install, but also completely independent from the power grid, making it accessible to even the most remote of areas. Transport for NSW can now communicate critical notifications at exactly the right moment, keeping passengers up to date and ensuring accurate information is delivered at the point of action.

Nowhere is this more crucial than in Sydney—one of the busiest cities in the world. The metropolis is host to a variety of special events, such as the upcoming Mardi Gras Parade, with streets closed off and normal city flows disturbed.

The new eStop displays allow service disruption information about such events to be communicated to the public in realtime, before and during the event. And in cases of emergency, the eStop can provide crucial emergency information to not only the bus ridership, but Sydneyites in general, displaying notifications even during blackouts, when other digital displays fail.

Based on electronic paper technology, they eStops have been designed and manufactured by Australian engineering company Mercury Innovation and the EU-based outdoor e-paper product specialist Visionect. The two companies previously collaboration on the 2016 installation of solar powered e-paper traffic signs in Sydney, a world first, running uninterrupted with an unprecedented zero failure rate more than two years later.