Sharma Srishti Synergy managed RDN goes live in Bengaluru Division, South Western Railway

In what may be viewed as the beginning of a transformational journey that Indian Railways has undertaken to augment train and passenger information systems at the stations, the Bengaluru Division of South Western Railway went live with its Railway Display Network (RDN) today. The RDN system, envisaged to cover 32 stations in the Bengaluru Division across three different states (Karnataka and parts of Tamil Nadu & Andhra Pradesh), was inaugurated by Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa at the KSR Bengaluru City Railway Station in the presence of Union Minister of State of Railways Suresh Angadi, Member of Parliament B Y Raghavendra and senior railway officials.

The turnkey RDN project was executed by Sharma Srishti Synergy under the stewardship of Srishti Group Managing Director S Kumar. The RDN system will continue to be managed by Sharma Srishti Synergy for a period of 10 years, wherein the company will run the train and passenger information network as also display advertising on the digital screens of varying formats. Sharma Srishti Synergy is installing over 1,600 digital screens under this project.

An elated S Kumar said the RDN project execution was one of the most challenging projects that Srishti Group has undertaken in its 2-decade plus business journey, and yet “it has been the most satisfying of all”. He added that the project execution and its management has considerably deepened the OOH firm’s capabilities. “Today, we are not looking at media asset ownership alone. We have developed in-house digital technology expertise, from networking of assets to content management system,” he said.

Kumar said the DOOH media will be a big draw among the advertisers. “We have been receiving quite many enquiries from potential advertisers on this media. I expect a whole new class of brand advertisers to come into the railway media space via the RDN assets. This first-of-its-kind network will likely be replicated in several other railway divisions,” he said.

The RDN which also serves digital OOH (DOOH) assets comprises:   

•  Video Walls with Passenger Announcement Facility: Large LED screens displaying information related to arrival, departures and running status of trains, expected delays,  Coach marshalling order of trains, any other Railway Information, disaster relief updates in case of emergencies etc.
•  Connected Digital Screens integrated with Public Announcement Systems: LED/LCD screens integrated with public announcement system that display train Arrival/Departure information, delays if any, expected delays, coach marshalling order of trains, any other Railway Information etc.
• Digital Train Enquiry System (DTES): LED screens displaying the final confirmation status of a waitlisted passenger.
• Dual Display Passenger Communication System / Fare Repeaters
• Digital Reservation Chart Display System.

The content delivery platform is integrated with the Passenger Reservation System, National Train Enquiry Service (NTES), Train Charting services.

The RDN content delivery platform has been designed to display content in the local language in addition to English and Hindi, based on the geographic location of the station.