TL;DR: Taxi LED advertising is sold by screen, by month, by share of the loop, or as a whole-fleet package, and each structure puts the unsold inventory on a different party. The screen position decides who sees the message and for how long. A roof screen is read by pedestrians in a few seconds. A rear-window screen is read by the driver behind for as long as the taxi stays ahead. Legibility follows from character height, viewing distance and traffic speed. Cost follows from vehicle count, fitting hours per vehicle, and the systems that deliver content.

Introduction

Two fleets of the same size can earn different amounts from the same screen model, because the screen position, the fitting hours per vehicle and the selling model all change the result. A fleet that chooses the screen first and the selling model last ends up with inventory it cannot fill.

This article covers taxi LED advertising from the operator’s side, taking those three decisions in the order a buyer meets them. Screen specifications appear only where they change an operating number. Rates for advertising space are set per city and per contract, so the useful output here is a cost and revenue structure you can hold a quote against.

Three ways a fleet earns from the screen

The selling model decides who carries unsold inventory on a fleet of taxi advertising screens. Choose it before the screen, because each model asks for different records.

Self-operated. The fleet owner sells the space directly and keeps what is sold. Unsold loop time stays with the owner. This model needs a sales function and a content pipeline, and it rewards a fleet that already has advertiser relationships.

Leased to an advertising company. The advertising company pays a fixed amount per screen for a period and takes the fill risk. The fleet owner’s income becomes predictable and capped. The advertising company can ask for play records, because it is paying for delivery rather than for the screen.

Revenue share. The two sides split what the space earns. This model needs an agreed way to count what was played and when, signed by both sides. A verbal split without play records can turn into a dispute at the first slow month.

All three models need the same underlying record: which screen showed which content, for how long, on which day. A fleet without that record can only sell on trust. An advertiser paying per play can ask for the record before agreeing a price.

Roof, rear window, in-cab: who is looking

The three positions used in LED taxi top advertising reach three different viewers, and the viewer decides the message length.

Roof screen. A taxi roof screen mounts above the car and shows on both faces, so it is read by pedestrians on the pavement and by drivers in crossing traffic. The viewer is moving or waiting, and the screen passes. Exposure is measured in seconds.

Rear-window screen. A taxi rear window LED display is fixed to the rear window. The viewer is the driver of the car directly behind, at the same speed, for as long as the taxi stays in front. That gives the longest exposure of the two exterior positions. The constraint is the glass: the panel has to stay transparent enough for the driver’s reversing view. The U-Taxi-Rear panel is built as a COB transparent display, and its light transmittance at the hollow areas of the panel reaches 52%. It weighs under 1.5 kg, and adding the reversing-screen function does not affect the driver’s reversing view.

In-cab screen. The viewer is the passenger, who cannot leave and cannot look away. The audience per vehicle is small and the ride is short, so this position suits route-level or category messaging more than reach.

Position	Who reads it	How long the view lasts	What limits the panel
Roof	Pedestrians on the pavement and drivers in crossing traffic	Seconds, while the taxi passes	The angle of the face as the car comes abeam
Rear window	The driver of the car directly behind	The length of the journey the taxi stays ahead	Light transmittance and the driver’s reversing view
In-cab	The passenger	The ride	Panel size inside the cabin

A fleet that wants reach buys roof screens. A fleet that wants message depth buys rear-window screens. A fleet selling to local businesses along a fixed route can use both, with the roof unit for the brand and the rear unit for the offer.

The position also decides the content format. A roof unit carries a line of text, a logo or a short loop, because the viewer has seconds. A rear-window panel can carry video, subtitles, timing and temperature alongside advertising, because the viewer stays behind it. The U-Taxi-Rear panel plays graphic advertisements, subtitles, video, clock, timing, temperature, humidity, announcements and weather. A fleet that runs one piece of content across both positions wastes one of them: the roof unit cannot develop a story in three seconds, and a static card on the rear window leaves that exposure unused.

Size, height and how long the message stays readable

Exposure time is set by one division: the distance over which the screen stays readable, divided by the speed at which the viewer and the screen separate.

Readable time (seconds) = readable distance (m) ÷ relative speed (m/s)

A taxi moving at 30 km/h covers 8.3 m each second. A roof screen that stays readable from 25 m along the street gives a standing pedestrian about three seconds. Raise the speed to 50 km/h and the same 25 m gives about 1.8 seconds. This is the number that decides how much text belongs on the screen.

Character height comes from the pixel pitch, and the pitch is a property of the panel. A taxi top LED display such as the U-Taxi-A roof display measures 960 × 320 mm. At P2.5, one character drawn 16 pixels high occupies 40 mm. At 25 m that character subtends about 5.5 arc minutes. Whether 5.5 arc minutes is enough depends on contrast and on the viewer, so the figure to bring to a supplier is the viewing distance you measured, plus the message length you intend to run. A character size guessed in advance moves the whole design in the wrong direction.

Pitch also decides how many characters fit on the face. A face 960 mm wide holds 384 pixels across at P2.5 and 192 at P5. Take a character 16 pixels high and 8 pixels wide: the finer face fits 48 across before spacing, and the coarser face fits 24. A message written for the finer panel has to be halved for the coarser one, or set in a taller character that shortens the distance at which it can be read.

A double-sided roof unit shows two faces, and a pedestrian at the kerb sees the near face at an angle instead of head on. At 45 degrees off the axis, a 960 mm face presents about 679 mm of width to the viewer. That geometry explains the short exposure window. The readable moment is the few seconds when the car is roughly abeam, and the approach before it is seen at an angle that compresses the message. The readable distance in the formula above is therefore measured along the street from the point where the face turns toward the viewer, not from the point where the car first appears.

Screen height above the ground decides which viewer the panel can serve. A roof unit mounts above the car roof, which puts it in the line of sight of a pedestrian at the kerb and of a driver in a taller vehicle. A rear-window panel is fixed at the height of the glass, which matches the eye level of the driver behind. A panel placed for one viewer is badly placed for the other, and the same screen cannot serve both.

How taxi LED advertising space is priced

Four structures cover most of the contracts a fleet will meet, and they differ in what counts as the unit.

Contract value = price per unit × units delivered

Per screen per period. Price per screen per month, multiplied by screens under contract. The advertiser carries the fill risk, so the fleet’s income does not move with demand. This structure suits a fleet that wants a predictable line and does not want a sales team.

Share of the loop. The advertiser buys a number of seconds inside a repeating cycle. If the loop runs 120 seconds and the advertiser holds 15, the advertiser’s share is one eighth of airtime. The fleet needs to control loop length, because loop length is the product.

Per thousand plays. Price per thousand deliveries, multiplied by plays recorded. This structure needs an auditable play log, and it shifts demand risk onto the fleet. It rewards a fleet with dense routes and a reliable record.

Whole-fleet package. One price for the fleet for a period, with content and scheduling handled by one side. The package is simpler to administer. It also fixes the vehicle count for the term, so a car that leaves service mid-term stays inside the contract unless the contract names a replacement clause.

Each structure also decides who pays for content production and who pays for the data connection that delivers it. Those two items are small in a quote and large in a dispute, so write them into the contract line by line.

Loop length is the number to argue about before signing. A 120 second loop that carries eight advertisers gives each one 15 seconds. If one advertiser wants 30 seconds, the fleet has two choices. It can lengthen the loop to 135 seconds, which cuts the number of complete rotations an hour and lowers every other advertiser’s hourly exposure. Or it can drop one advertiser, which loses the revenue but keeps the rotation rate. The first choice keeps every advertiser on the contract and lowers all of their hourly exposure. The second keeps the rotation rate and ends one contract. Neither is free, and the fleet should name which one it will use before the first long slot is sold. Track rotation count per hour as a contract term, and the argument becomes arithmetic instead of opinion.

What the screen quote leaves out

The screen price is one line of a fleet budget. The cost lines behind a fixed outdoor advertising installation are traced in a separate analysis. For a fleet, the lines below decide whether the project holds.

Fitting cost = vehicles × fitting hours per vehicle × labour rate

Downtime cost = vehicles × hours off the road × earning per vehicle-hour

Items to confirm with the supplier. Ask whether the price covers the roof bracket or the rear mounting kit, the power harness, a spare module per fleet size, and access to the content platform. A quote that stops at the cabinet leaves the fitting to the buyer.

Fitting hours per vehicle stay close to flat as fleet size grows, while the hardware cost per unit can fall with volume. Each roof unit mounts to a bracket on one car, and that work is done once per vehicle rather than once per order. A fleet buying 200 units carries close to 200 times the single-vehicle fitting hours, whatever the cabinet price does at that volume. Ask the supplier which bracket the unit assumes, because the fitting hours depend on it, and a quote that prices only the cabinet has no reason to raise the question.

Items to confirm on the vehicle side. A roof unit draws from the car’s electrical system. The U-Taxi roof unit runs from a DC-to-DC wide-voltage supply of 9 to 36 V, and the screen body carries a delayed start that does not affect the car’s start. Confirm both on the model you order, because without them the fitting can need an electrical change.

Items only the operator can answer. Fitting hours per vehicle, hours off the road per vehicle, insurance for mounted equipment, and the permission required for vehicle-mounted advertising in each city where the fleet operates. Permission rules are set locally, and the operator confirms them city by city before the order.

Fleets that also sell space on fixed sites keep two cost models, because a fixed installation is not priced per vehicle. That second model is covered by outdoor advertising screens and billboards.

What sets the return

Return on a fleet is set by five variables, and all five are measurable before a screen is bought.

Sold loop share. The share of airtime that carries paying content. This is the variable a sales team moves.

Screens in service. Vehicles fitted and working, which is a different number from vehicles owned.

Uptime per screen. Hours available against hours scheduled. A screen that is dark during a paid campaign is either replaced in the record or refunded under the contract, so the contract needs to name which.

Route coverage. The number of distinct streets a fleet reaches in a day. Two fleets with the same vehicle count can cover different numbers of streets, and it is the figure an advertiser is really buying.

Content refresh. How often the loop changes. Stale content is the variable an operator can change without buying anything.

Route coverage is the figure that decides what a mobile LED advertising fleet can sell. Log the fleet’s GPS positions across a normal operating week, then count distinct street segments by name. A trip count overstates coverage, because the same main road is crossed on every shift. The U-Taxi unit records traffic trajectory and mileage, so the segment list comes from an export rather than a separate survey.

A play log that carries screen identity, content identity, date, start time and duration turns delivery into something an advertiser can audit. The U-Taxi platform keeps traffic trajectory, mileage and advertising log statistics, so a record exists before the contract is signed. Ask the supplier which fields that export contains, because the five fields above are what a per-play contract needs.

Conclusion

The screen is the smallest decision in a taxi LED advertising project. The selling model decides who carries unsold inventory, the screen position decides how long a message is visible, and the fitting hours decide what each vehicle really costs to put on the road. Settle those three before comparing panel prices, and the quote becomes a document you can check line by line rather than a single number to accept or reject.

Fleets planning a first order can start from the taxi display range, with roof and rear-window mounting options.

FAQ

Q1:Is a roof screen or a rear-window screen the better first purchase? 

The answer follows from the viewer you can reach. A roof unit reaches pedestrians and crossing traffic, and it works when the fleet wants reach. A rear-window panel reaches the driver behind for the length of the journey, and it works when the fleet wants a message read in full.

Q2:How large should the characters be? 

Work back from the viewing distance you measured and the time the message stays visible. Character height follows from pixel pitch and the number of pixels per character. Whether the result is readable depends on contrast as well, so bring the distance and the message length to the supplier rather than a character size.

Q3:Does a screen quote include installation? 

Read the line items. A bracket or mounting kit, the power harness, spare modules and platform access can each appear as a separate line. Fitting labour on the vehicle is a separate line again, and it is priced per vehicle rather than per square metre.

Q4:What should the fleet have ready before requesting a quote? 

Five inputs: the screen position for each vehicle, a viewing distance measured on the route, the message length you intend to run, the vehicle count with its electrical specification, and the cities where the fleet operates. A supplier who receives all five can price the fitting alongside the panel.

Q5:What should a play log contain? 

Screen identity, content identity, date, start time and duration. A log without screen identity cannot answer an advertiser’s question about which vehicle ran the campaign, and a log without duration cannot support a per-play contract.