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Comment by RadiozRadioz | Hacker News Reader

The heat generated by the LED ads is tiny compared to the heat generated by the actual trains and I think they handled that one very well.

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Generally agreed.

In DC we had a similar change over. My complaint is just that it is incredibly tacky. It's much brighter than ambient lighting is.

Our metro system is facing a huge budget crunch (the Feds stopping COVID money, and the 2.5 states involved have been very unhelpful at providing funding). I get that advertising is an appealing revenue stream. I just wish we could do it in a way that wasn't so rambunctiously over the top; I wish we could preserve some level of taste.

Transport for London's [1] revenue should be £9100 million this year. Revenue from advertising was £130 million last year, so around 1.5%.

It would be nicer if they would just end the advertising.

[1] London Underground (metro), several within-London urban and suburban rail lines, buses, trams, river ferries, major roads

https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2023/march/...

https://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-advertising-annual-report-aug...

Just increase tax a bit more to make up for it :)

In a way advertising is a tax that we all pay.

Metro is a balm compared to the PenFed illuminated tunnel at Washington Dulles airport.

For non locals, this is in a long walkway between access train and terminal, is lit in bright blue moving images, and plays a silly song about interest rates at high volume for the entirety of your time in the tunnel. It has cemented my desire to never do business with PenFed, for sure.

My favorite thing about the DC metro are the micro-targeted ads. Obviously, there's all the defense contractor junk at Pentagon City, but I also remember one at Foggy Bottom that was like "so-and-so is on the payroll of ISIS and the State Department should BAN them."

I love the very-specific niche ads of the DC metro area. The #1 morning radio station in DC is WTOP and their ads are for attack helicopter programs instead of used Subarus. As in, "the Lockheed Grumman Supa-Attak 123XYZ is the proven program for warfighters in the C4ISR space <insert another 30 seconds of insider mumbo jumbo>". Certainly makes a change from car dealers and mattress stores.

Presumably the LED ads are also cheaper than employing people to change the posters.

i doubt it's less actual cost, but they definitely make more money overall by being able to rotate the ads more frequently.

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