The goal of modern train or bus infotainment solutions is to give the passengers orientation about stops, schedules and routes, to give hints for changing trains, short-term changes of the route, or delays and to provide entertainment, for instance by displaying news of the day or the weather forecast. In this application a standard Celeron® M or Pentium® M board with up to 2GHz supported by the new PCI Express® technology is used as the general communication platform and central control for all systems in the vehicle. The 3U CompactPCI® system is located in the driver's cabin. A separate FPGA board handles the required UART interfaces and a customized I/O board realizes binary I/O, tacho interface, CAN bus, IBIS bus, GPS and GSM. This keeps costs low for the typically low volume of units despite I/O and communication requirements that widely differ from project to project. Passenger displays, audio announcement of stops and the video cameras in the stations are controlled by CANopen. All electronic components are screened for -40 to +85°C operating temperature and prepared for conformal coating depending on the application.

The complete infotainment system is based on the latest internet technology. The programs and the data are stored on a centralized server. The software controls the display contents on the remote screens via Local Area Network, wired or wireless, individually and independent of each other. Apart from displaying pictures, text or film, the system can also transmit audio data. TV, video, DVD or radio programs are also controlled by the system using streaming technology.