Meet Willie – TV on Wheels

Orlowski ideas will see bus schedule and route information, advertising, movie trailers, weather updates, tourism information and more being displayed on the screens at any given moment.

Over the past few years we have seen Toyota applying an external design to its Fun-Vii and the FV2 concept. Daimler also contemplated such a concept recently. Toyota’s Fun-Vii gave us lots of options like restyling the exterior with patterns, colors, words and more couple of pokes and swipes of a touchscreen. These passenger car and three-wheeler concepts are interesting, there is more potential for a large vehicle like a bus. A bus has many advantages when it comes to this idea as it has far more room for displays. Its extra size gives designers more flexibility in combining displays in such a way that increases their visibility.

Tad Orlowski is a designer who has come up with a rather clever mass-transit concept with a silly sounding name, the “Willie” bus by designer is intended to “transform city landscapes.” It uses most of the bus’s body as display space. The traditional bus will be transformed and transparent LCDs will take place of traditional body panels. The displays are transparent so the passengers can still enjoy views outside.

Orlowski ideas will see bus schedule and route information, advertising, movie trailers, weather updates, tourism information and more being displayed on the screens at any given moment. The displays can continually be updated to serve different information and advertising as needed. The Willie can function both as one large, coordinated display as well as multiple displays. One displays shows route and stop information while the other has advertising.

This new project faces many regulatory and technological obstacles hence it is not being pursued by any local authorities. As for now, Willie is just a conversation starter about the future of transportation and communications but expect the static advertising to be replaced by full-motion advertising.