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Last month, Icomera subsidiary GoMedia held a demonstration event at Arriva Rail London’s Camden Road Overground station, showcasing its Personalised Digital Sign Language solution, ‘Luna’. Arriva Rail London has been trialling the solution at five London Overground stations.
The demonstration event brought together guests from a range of organisations, including Transport for London (TfL), the Royal National Institute of Deaf People (RNID), and Innovate UK, as well as local rail authorities and other stakeholders.
Attendees took part in an active trial of the solution, travelling between Camden Road and Hackney Central Overground stations while using the web application to view real-time journey and delay information and experience Luna’s ease of use while they travelled.
Powered by Signapse technology and integrated with GoMedia’s accessible wayfinding solution, ‘Visor’, Luna translates digital information listed online into British Sign Language (BSL) and transmits it directly to users through their smart devices, providing a simple and cost-effective solution for making transport more accessible for passengers with hearing loss.
“Easy navigation, text versions of announcements – BRILLIANT!”
In addition to BSL, passengers can access the information Visor provides through audio and text announcements in up to 33 languages, extending the solution’s usefulness to a wide array of users, for example people who wear noise cancelling headphones when travelling.
Earlier in the year, the RNID conducted tests of the solution online and at stations. 20 participants of various ages and backgrounds were surveyed, all of whom were either deaf BSL users, or people with hearing loss ranging from “mild” to “severe” and “profound”. The results demonstrated that the “majority of testers feel Luna would make their travel more independent and would use it again”.
When asked whether Luna makes travel more independent for participants if implemented across the transport network, 16 out of 20 users confirmed that it would (3 were unsure), commenting:
“To have travel information at hand would definitely improve my confidence. I would not have to rely on someone else for support, I could do it myself.” – User aged 55-64 from Wales.
“I think it would allow me to work out what the announcements are. This is really helpful. Reliability would be so important.” – User aged 25-34 user from East of England.
Users also reported that they felt comfortable using the solution, which was intuitive, clearly organised, and easy to understand.
Two users aged 34-44 from Greater London said: “I did like how [Luna] was organized. It generally made sense to me in terms of categories.” and “Appreciative of BSL translation and all the updates with train times were helpful.”, respectively.
“Easy navigation, text versions of announcements – BRILLIANT!” – User aged 55-64 from East Midlands.
Luna was developed as part of the ‘First of a Kind’ (FOAK) 2024 project, which was funded by the Department for Transport (DfT) and supported by Innovate UK.
Quentin Dejean, Managing Director of GoMedia says: “Luna is the latest addition to our accessibility solutions ecosystem, which has been designed to make transport more accessible for all passengers, regardless of their additional needs, for example, hearing- and sight-loss, or translation support.
“Additionally, by facilitating independent navigation for passengers with smart devices, on-station personnel can be freed up to help other passengers who require in-person support – A vital consideration, for example, for an estimated 270,000 people in London who have limited or no Internet access.
“By offering inexpensive, easy-to-deploy accessibility solutions that target a wide range of use cases at once, we can offer a smart, connected journey for all – even across the ‘digital divide’.”