Canadian firm Ynvisible Interactive has developed a very low power, e-paper road signage system to support the development of EV charging stations in Croatia. The company has built the system in collaboration with Croatian digital solutions firm Exevio.

The project is supported by the Centre of Competence for Smart Cities (CEKOM), a government-backed organisation that encourages R&D in the field of smart cities which includes electric vehicles.

In Croatia, before Ynvisible and Exevio’s digital signage solution, the only way drivers would know if a stall in an EV charging station was available was to use a mobile app while driving.

With the implementation of the digital signs on locations such as intersections, parking entrances or above the EV stations themselves, drivers can now be informed of the availability of the charging stations, reducing the need to use a smartphone while driving.

The digital road sign needed to be extremely low power, energy independent and send out geo-location data in order to be sustainable and autonomous on the open road. It also needed to satisfy road safety law and emit minimum visual stimuli to prevent distraction when driving, whilst also looking like a traditional traffic sign.

Ivan Jokic, an engineer at Exevio said: “We saw an opportunity to use electronic paper displays to achieve sustainability and autonomy. We needed a classic but new take on a sign for EV charging stations and engaged Ynvisible to produce this for us.”

“Ynvisible has an interesting take on e-paper technology – their display is able to show numbers, use low amounts of energy, easy to implement, and easy to repair and replace, enabling our product to have a low environment impact. Fast production at low cost; and the ability to implement our own custom design also played a key role in choosing Ynvisible.”