Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to electronic-sign systems, and more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to systems and methods for monitoring the operational health of such systems through diagnostic information.
History Of Related Art
The public-transit industry is well known for its signage. A plurality of signs may often be positioned in and/or around a bus, train, or other mode of transit to display information to passengers, potential passengers, and/or other observers. For example, busses often display route information on signs disposed on the outside of busses so the sign information can easily be observed. The information may include the name of the route that particular bus is servicing. In that way, potential passengers waiting at a bus stop will know which bus to board.
In early days of mass transportation, bus operators often used a placard displaying a route number which was placed in a window of the bus. Eventually, such placards were replaced by electronic signs capable of displaying a selected route number thereon. Electronic signs provide flexibility in the type of information that is displayed to passengers. In particular, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have become commonplace in electronic signs due to various advantages that include, for example, efficient energy consumption, a long lifetime, improved robustness, small size, fast switching, and excellent durability. However, even electronic signs that utilize LEDs occasionally malfunction and therefore, for a variety of reasons, will fail to provide route information to passengers and potential passengers.
Currently, problems in the operational health of such systems such as, for example, failures in sign functionality, are generally only detected by a visual inspection by the bus operator. Oftentimes, however, the failures are only identified long after the failure begins and after many passengers and potential passengers are unable to obtain necessary transit information. Moreover, evaluation of a severity of any failures that are identified by the bus operator is subjective and often inaccurate. Therefore, failure-detection in current sign systems is ineffective and inefficient.