Transport hubs – Airports, Railway stations, Metro stations
Paging Announcements, Emergency announcements are most critical in a Transport hub like Airport or a railway station. BGM is also played through the same Audio System and is ducked when an announcement is made. Systems in these venues are designed for 24×7 operation.
Challenges
Challenges faced while designing PA BGM Solutions for these venues -These venues normally have triple or more ceiling heights with granite/tiles on the floor and glass on most of the walls which maskes it very acoustically challenging, with RT times going upto 5 seconds in certain spaces. Designing PA-BGM for airports is a huge task and designing involves not just 3D Audio simulation of each area but also making sure that there is no or minimal spill over of sound from one zone to another. Noise levels in such spaces are also pretty high going to 85dB or more.
The complete PABGM system is divided into various zones like Departure , Arrival, Baggage Claims, Security Hold, Gates Holding areas , Baggage Make up/breakup areas, Concourse, Back end offices etc and there are multiple calling stations spread over the facility for making Zone wise, Multi-zone , All call or Emergency announcements. These call stations are digital and have keypads with multiple buttons to select zones and controlling the volume of each zone. Zones can be prioritised as per requirements.
PA BGM in such spaces are mostly Digital in nature and works over IP. It can be centrally monitored and automatic computer generated Logs can be created on daily basis which can also show any fault happens if happens during operation.
IDS - Information Display system
IDS – Information Display system is a very critical part of such a space and cannot be done without. Mostly used for displaying Flight/Train information but can also be used for Advertising and playing recorded videos for public warnings etc . Video panels/LED Video walls are installed at various strategic locations to guide the passengers to their destination.
While selecting the locations of the displays we need to be careful that location must not be at an entrance or an exit or at a location where it could block the passenger traffic flow if passengers are standing and reading the information. Also, selecting the right Size and type of displays is also very important for the passengers to be able to read through from a reasonable distance.Video Distribution to all Sinks (Video displays) is over IP and is managed centrally from a central control room within the premises.