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Good practice Imported

TransportSign — SignAvatar's AI Speech-to-Sign-Language Translator at Belgrade Central Railway Station

Serbia · Belgrade · See the Serbia profile · See the Belgrade profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 39% 76/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Serbian startup SignAvatar deployed 'TransportSign' at Belgrade's Central Railway Station, using AI to convert real-time public-transport announcements into sign-language avatar video and multilingual text for Deaf and hard-of-hearing passengers.

>85 %
Surveyed Deaf passengers feeling safer with the system
30+
Languages supported for translation
460 million
Deaf people worldwide potentially excluded from audio-only transit announcements

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
SignAvatar / Railways of Serbia
Period
2022-2024
Keywords
assistive technology, artificial intelligence, transport accessibility, sign language

Context

Public transport announcements are typically audio-only or plain text, excluding an estimated 460 million Deaf people worldwide who cannot access spoken safety and schedule information -- a figure cited by the innovator, SignAvatar. Since 2022, Serbian startup SignAvatar has licensed its 'TransportSign' product to Railways of Serbia for Belgrade's Central Railway Station, later extending it to Nikola Tesla Airport.

Activities

The system automatically translates station announcements into sign-language avatar animation and text, and supports translation into more than 30 spoken and written languages. The case is documented in the OECD's Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) registry.

Results

SignAvatar's own OECD submission reports that over 85% of surveyed Deaf passengers felt safer travelling with the system, and that the stations it serves handle millions of passengers annually.

Conclusions

These figures are self-reported by the vendor rather than independently audited, and separate projections in the same submission -- such as targeted app downloads and licensing revenue -- are explicitly stated as forward-looking targets, not achieved results.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k) — Licensed product ('TransportSign') sold to Railways of Serbia; specific licence fees not publicly reported.
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years) — Deployed at Belgrade Central Railway Station since 2022; extended to Nikola Tesla Airport by 2024.
Staffing & skills
SignAvatar technical team, Railways of Serbia station operations staff

Conditions for success

  • A licensing arrangement with the transit operator (Railways of Serbia)
  • Real-time translation into 30+ languages to serve diverse passengers
  • Documentation in an internationally visible registry (OECD-OPSI) for credibility and replication

Common failure modes

  • Passenger-survey and revenue figures are vendor self-reported, not independently audited
  • No formal published lessons-learned document beyond stated interest in expanding to additional stations

Where it fits

Governance type
private vendor licensing to a state-owned transit operator
Scale
a single major station, extended to a second site (airport)
Income level
upper-middle-income

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

Replication kit

Reusable artefacts from this practice — as published by their sources.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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