Leasing Service for Networks of Interactive Public Displays in Urban Spaces

This paper reports performance metrics and end-user perceptions of a display leasing service, introduced for a network of public displays. Through leasing, users can acquire a temporary ownership of a public display and utilize it as an application UI element together with a personal mobile device. We argue that this functionality is necessary as the quantity of public displays grows, in order to facilitate public resource utilization and alleviate patterns such as queuing and polling. We implemented a prototype of the leasing service and conducted a field trial with a real-world city centre scenario, through which we analyze the service's signaling overhead and key deployment challenges.