Sunroof Digital Screens Might Soon Grace Subway Cars

As we’ve all expected, we will soon have digital screens pretty much everywhere. We’ll have to see whether or not our public areas will look like something from the Blade Runner movie. But at the pace things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case in about 50 years from now. Our primary information provider is by far the digital screen. Soon it looks like we are going to have the ability to see the outside world on a digital sunroof screen in subway cars as well.

It’s a group of British design students who have come up with the concept of creating a more uplifting feeling when were traveling through the world’s different subway systems. The subway cars of today are utterly depressing and quite cramped. This new sunroof technology could help make subway rides a whole lot more enjoyable.

The sunroofs will display digital content in the form of weather forecasts, news, and what might be the coolest feature of it all, a virtual representation of the landscape above. This could potentially make a whole lot more people want to take the subway instead of their car to work (if the possibility of doing so exists that is). Today cars are polluting our inner cities, and the more people who choose to use public transportation, the less polluted our beautiful cities will be. It’s a straightforward equation really, and one that has to be enhanced.

The system would be controlled by an on-board computer which would be updated via wi-fi while the train is blasting through the tunnels. The concept as a whole is quite simple, and it could mean that a lot more people would enjoy taking the subway to work. These sunroof screens could of course also be used for other things such as displaying interactive video ads, which could come to lower the price it costs to use public transportation. The possibilities are endless as soon as you start to think about it. When these sunroof screens could be installed is yet unknown. The system is currently under development, but the progress these design students are making really speaks for an implementation in the near future.

Canopy – Digital Sunroof Screen