Project Introduction

Stena Line, an ABTA member, is an international transport and travel service company and one of the world’s leading ferry operators which operates in three business areas: Scandinavia, the North Sea and the Irish Sea with a network of 18 strategically located ferry routes in Europe. Stena Line has a modern fleet with a total of 35 vessels including fast ferries (Stena HSS), traditional combi-ferries, RoPax ferries for freight and passengers, and pure cargo ships, it’s a stable and profitable group and is committed to providing passengers with the best service and experience possible. During 2009, approximately 15.4 million passengers traveled with Stena Line. 3.3 million cars and 1.6 million freight units were transported during the same period. Inurface media was asked to provide a menu board solution for their two latest Superfast ferries, Superfast VII and Superfast VIII, following a £26 million refurbishment. Stena Line needed a flexible solution which allowed either the remote IT department or onboard customer service team to update the menu boards with the latest information.

Solution

This is a typical digital signage application which takes several benefits to the company: they can perform content changes and deliver messages quickly; they have complete control over their network of digital signage displays from one central location; Digital Signage can lower overhead by removing traditional paper communication.

Inurface Media installed Advantech ARK-DS303 media players, which were configured with their digital signage software called IUF Media Manager, to allow centralized content deployment from their server. The players powered half height, professional grade wide-screen NEC panels giving the on-board Taste restaurant a unique look. Inurface Media has chosen Advantech players because of their industrial design and high reliability. Stena Line is working with Inurface Media in order to consolidate all their current digital signage projects with one company.

Project Implementation

Advantech’s ARK-DS303 media players are configured with IUF Media Manager digital signage software to capture content from their server.

ARK-DS303 is empowered by Intel® Atom™ processor N270 1.6 GHz and System Controller Hub 945GSE; it’s a compact, energy-saving, fanless, digital signage media player.