DOOH advertising in public buses

Public buses host 38 Trillboards screens in transit corridors — captive commuter audiences in 15–45 minute ride sessions.

Network statistics

Active screens38in 2 countries
US cities2aggregate count
Avg floor CPM$1.20USD per 1k impressions
Avg daily impressionsper screen

For DOOH buyers

Bus DOOH reaches the captive commuter audience in 15–45 minute ride sessions. The audience archetype is commuters and travelers in mixed-group composition; ride-share, telecom, financial services, and food-delivery advertisers see strong measured lift in this category.

For venue owners

Public transit operators contract with Trillboards to host in-vehicle screens. The hardware ships pre-configured for moving-vehicle environments (ruggedized mount, vibration-tolerant) and operates over the bus’s onboard connectivity without operator intervention.

Public buses in the DOOH ecosystem

Bus DOOH is one of the most attention-rich captive-audience categories — passengers in 15–45 minute ride sessions have limited alternative media (mobile data may be patchy in transit) and frequently look at vehicle screens. The 38 active Trillboards bus screens are concentrated in two US cities (Long Beach CA, Key West FL) plus international bus markets. Floor CPM of $1.20 USD sits below network mean because public-transit advertising operates under more restrictive creative rules than indoor inventory — alcohol creatives are restricted in many jurisdictions, child-safety standards apply to all routes that include school adjacencies. Buyer demand concentrates in ride-share, telecom, food delivery, and financial services.

Audience signal & brand-safety fit

Dominant audience archetype

  • commuters
  • travelers
  • mixed group

Dwell pattern

Brief (under 2 minutes per impression)

Brand-safety fit

Public transit context — family-friendly creative standards apply; alcohol creatives restricted in jurisdictions with public-transit ad rules.

Top US cities for public buses

Five US cities with the highest concentration of public buses on the Trillboards programmatic DOOH network (aggregate count — no per-screen identifiers exposed).

How programmatic DOOH works at public buses

Each screen at public buses runs the Trillboards kiosk app, which holds an open OpenRTB 2.6 connection to the Trillboards SSP. Roughly every 30 seconds, the device fires an ad request carrying the IAB DOOH inventory descriptor (venue category, geographic bucket, screen format) plus any locally observed audience signals from the on-device CV pipeline — group composition, audience archetype, and attention level — all aggregated and stripped of per-person identifiers before they leave the screen.

Demand-side platforms bid in under 100 ms; the winning creative ships back, plays inside the device's native VAST player, and confirms playback via a signed proof-of-play receipt. Trillboards reconciles those receipts daily against partner-reported numbers (the canonical record of truth for billable impressions) and credits the venue's earner balance monthly. The public buses category on the Trillboards network averages $1.20 USD floor CPM, numbers that translate directly into the earnings model below.

The Trillboards platform supports both first-party and third-party VAST creatives, OMID-compliant viewability measurement where the creative declares OMID support, and full proof-of-play receipts signed at the device level — meeting the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA) measurement standards and the IAB DOOH 1.0 specification. Buyers using the Trillboards OpenRTB endpoint can target public buses specifically via the IAB Audience Taxonomy plus the Trillboards segtax=600 namespace without ever receiving per-screen identifiers in the bid request.

What can a public buse-host screen earn?

Use the calculator to model monthly earnings for a screen in public buses. Inputs default to network-wide medians; adjust them to match your specific venue traffic.

Earnings Estimator

How much can you earn?

Select your business type, number of screens, and traffic level to see your estimated monthly earnings.

15101520

Estimated Monthly Earnings

$0

~4,000 impressions/month

Join 2,500+ businesses earning with Trillboards
$2.4M+ paid out to screen owners
8,000+ screens live

Data methodology & freshness

The 38 active screens, 2 countries, 2 US cities, $1.20 average floor CPM shown here are aggregated from the Trillboards PostgreSQL system of record (table earner_screens filtered by status = 'approved'), joined to the venue taxonomy. Counts reflect the network state at the snapshot date and are rebuilt monthly. Floor CPM numbers are the screen-level minimums; cleared CPMs typically run 20–40% higher depending on demand. Per Trillboards aggregate-only data disclosure policy, no per-screen identifiers, partner identifiers, or device identifiers are published on this page — only the counts and category-level statistics needed for buyer and earner decisions.

Related venue categories

View all 48 venue categories