1980 Letter to ATBCB

Smith-Kettlewell REC encouraged the Architectural and Transportation Compliance Board (ATBCB) to consider the importance and availability of remote signage as far back as 1980. It was hoped that the Talking Signs would become part of the barrier free environmental guidelines being contemplated at that time.

October 17, 1980

Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board Room
1010 330 "C" Street, SW. Washington, DC. 20202
Attention:  Charles Goldman

Dear Mr. Goldman:

Please find enclosed a summary description of the Talking Signs system 
which our staff engineer, Bill Loughborough, has discussed with you.  
We hope this information (which bears directly on accessibility to signs, 
landmarks, and the environment generally by the blind, visually impaired, 
and first-handicapped population) will be of service to you in drafting 
the barrier free environment guide-lines.

We believe strongly that systems such as the Talking Signs can effectively 
remove many of the environmental barriers which presently exist for the 
many million blind, visually impaired, and reading- disabled  persons in 
this country.  Consequently, provisions should be made in the  proposed 
regulations to ensure that as much as possible will be done to  remove 
barriers not only for the physically handicapped, who have received the 
most attention in this regard, but the visually handicapped also.

Thanking you for your interest and time in this matter,

	Sincerely,

		John A. Brabyn
		Co-Director
		Rehabilitation Engineering Center
		Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute

(attachment)

Talking Signs Overview

William Loughborough

1. Overall Concept.

The "Talking Signs" concept is a method of making navigational signs and landmarks "readable" by blind and visually impaired persons. A sighted person can best understand the value of such an orientation system if he imagines all street signs, house markers, room numbers, and bus identification signs, etc. to be suddenly removed. Travel through a city or inside a large building would become a frustrating process even for sighted traveler.

To make these signs (taken for granted by the sighted population) available to the blind, the "Talking Signs" concept is to place a miniature, low-power infrared light transmitter at locations where written signs normally appear both indoors and out. Each light source, invisible to the eye and therefore not intrusive to the sighted population, is modulated with a spoken message (stored on a very smell computer memory chip) corresponding to the wording on the sign. Although the light would transmit continuously, its message is only heeled when a blind pedestrian points his receiver in the general direction of the sign and depresses the "on" button. The receiver, which contains a small loudspeaker, then derides the sign and speaks the sign message.

2. Relevance to Blind and Visually Impaired Population.

Until recently, engineering research in orientation and mobility of the blind has concentrated mainly on obstacle avoidance devices to enable a straight and safe path to be maintained. What has been largely ignored is the fact that these functions can be performed to a large extent by conventional long cane and echo location techniques, whereas a more serious problem constantly encountered by the blind pedestrian is not knowing where he is, especially in unfamiliar surroundings. To ascertain what street he is on, which corner he is on, which bus is approaching, where the bus stop sign is, which building he is passing, which floor the elevator has reached, where the room number he wants is, and a host of other needed facts, he normally has to ask a sighted person, who knows the information because he can read signs. Thus access to signs, as provided by the "talking signs" project, would allow a quantum advance in independence for the blind and visually impaired population It would effectively remove the barriers to their independent travel in unfamiliar areas.

3. Relevance to the Wider Population.

The talking signs concept, once implemented in any area, would be of immediate value to the sighted and partially sighted population. This would especially be the case under darkened conditions when street signs, for example, are difficult to read even by a normally sighted individual. Partially sighted individuals, including a large subset of the geriatric population, have difficulty reading signs even under optimal viewing conditions, and the advantages of spoken signs are obvious.

In the longer term, it is entirely possible to produce "intelligent" receivers using already available speech synthesis technology capable of translation into any language. The advantages of such a system to foreign travelers (especially, for example, in airport terminals and public transit systems) would be great.

4. Technology and Cost-Effectiveness.

The technology used in the "talking signs" is not futuristic it is already with us. In fact, the principle of light-beam communication is over 100 years old. The current experimental prototypes use off-the-shelf components and normal circuit board construction. Even in this form the transmitters and receivers can be produced commercially for $70 each in quantities of 100. This figure should be compared with the $3000-plus cost of curb-cuts for wheelchairs at an intersection. The "talking signs" transmitters drain so little power that outdoor versions could be solar powered and involve virtually negligible installation and maintenance cost.

When the system is implemented on any large scale, the production costs will fall dramatically, and the transmitter will be reduced to a single "chip." It is estimated that unit cost could be reduced to less than $5 and possibly $2 in large quantities. Questions of economic feasibility would then disappear, and the device could be included as an integral part of the barrier removal program for the handicapped.

5. Public Transit Applications.

One of the major immediate applications of the Talking Signs system would be in public transit systems. In an underground metro station, for example, the locations of the ticket machines, elevators, platforms, etc. could be marked by talking signs to assist visually impaired individuals in locating them. In systems where announcements of train arrivals, departures, and destinations are made only visually, talking signs on the station signboards and trains them-selves would give access to this information.

Finally, the danger of visually impaired persons falling off platforms would be materially reduced by the incorporation of the talking signs orientation system in each station. For example, the talking signs on the elevators or stairway exists at either end of the platform (or if necessary special talking Signs or beacons on the platforms) could be used by the blind individual to locate accurately the platform center. An individual orienting toward such signs would always be facing away from the platform edge.