Summary
The final report of an Australian project that trialled Auracast passenger announcements at Melbourne Airport, on Melbourne buses and at a Canberra light rail and bus interchange, and asked how Auracast and hearing loops should work together during a transition.
Key findings
- Section 3 (page 11) reports 19 structured user-testing sessions at three locations, including people who use hearing aids or cochlear implants and people who are blind, have low vision or are neurodivergent; it does not give a total number of participants. The sites are Melbourne Airport Terminal 4, CDC Melbourne bus services from Highpoint Shopping Centre in Maribyrnong, and the Dickson light rail and bus interchange in Canberra.
- Participants described announcements through Auracast as clearer, with less distortion, interference and listening effort than they had experienced with hearing loops, and valued being able to move around while staying connected.
- Recommends a staged rollout in bounded settings such as buses, carriages, waiting rooms and station zones, and that Auracast be "deployed alongside, not instead of, existing hearing loop systems" to keep access for telecoil users during the transition.
- States that Auracast can give broader coverage and lower-cost, less invasive deployment than loops, and that, like a loop, it is not a "set and forget" technology.
- Lists device compatibility, finding and joining broadcasts, and connection steps as areas still to mature, and recommends testing a broad range of receivers, clear channel names, and signage or QR codes that explain what each broadcast carries and what to do if it is unavailable.
- Its executive summary says benefits were observed among hearing aid users and also among blind and low-vision passengers and neurodivergent participants.
- Reports that some participants who had given up on the hearing loop said they would reconsider assistive hearing technology (section 3.1.1).
- The final report cover identifies Australian Government funding through iMOVE IEP. Section 3 (page 11) names La Trobe University, NEC Australia and Get Skilled Access as delivering the trials and reports 19 structured sessions at three locations; this final report does not give a total number of individual participants.
Limits
A qualitative trial: the companion user experience report lists 14 participants, and no loop was tested side by side, so comparisons with loops rest on participants' past experience. The final report gives no measured coverage, latency or cost figures (a separate technical report was not read). It identifies NEC Australia among the organisations delivering the project, without allocating the pilot and integration work to individual organisations. No publication date is printed; the record date comes from the PDF creation metadata (4 September 2026), not a stated trial date.
Read the original
Cited in
- Should a venue keep its hearing loop when it adds Auracast, and can one system serve both?Partly answered
- What works for announcements and ticket counters on buses, trains, stations and airports?Partly answered
- What reaches a cochlear implant user in a venue, and how well?Partly answered
Cite this source
La Trobe University, NEC Australia and Get Skilled Access. Accelerating the adoption of Auracast: everyone should hear what matters (final report, iMOVE project 6-057 IEP). iMOVE Australia Cooperative Research Centre. 4 September 2026. https://imoveaustralia.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Accelerating-the-adoption-of-Auracast-everyone-should-hear-what-matters-Final-report.pdf (accessed 13 October 2026).
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