fancy your name on one?
given a fair wind, this summer should see a cable car running over the river thames, connecting greenwich to the royal docks in east london. the “emirates air line”, named after the dubai carrier, has already altered one familiar feature of the london landscape. for the first time since its creation by harry beck, an engineer, in 1931, the london underground map shows a station that carries the name of a corporate sponsor. two stations, in fact (see picture).
如果一切顺利，今年夏天我们就可以看见泰晤士河上面的缆车了。该缆车接连格林威治和伦敦东部的皇家码头，这条“阿联酋航空公司线”是以迪拜运输公司命名，对于大家早已熟悉的伦敦来说，这会让它产生一点改变，因为自1931年工程师harry beck建造地铁以来，这是伦敦地铁地图上第一次出现赞助商的名字。两个被赞助的车站如图所示。
this feels like a minor commercial encroachment. dubai’s metro system has sponsored stations: a passenger can ride from nakheel station, named after a property developer, through first gulf bank to emirates station. many of the stops on las vegas’s monorail are named after casinos. but london is not dubai or las vegas. its two sponsored stations may be renamed as the market dictates: the emirates deal lasts for ten years.
这就像一次小型的商业广告入侵，迪拜地铁系统已经有被赞助的车站，比如棕榈岛站（以房地产开发商命名），乘客可以从这里乘车穿过第一海湾银行到达阿联酋航空公司站；在拉斯维加斯的单轨电车站，很多都是以赌场命名。虽然伦敦不是迪拜也不是拉斯维加斯，但迫于市场压力，这两个被赞助的车站可能还是要被改名，因为与阿联酋航空公司的交易合同长达十年。
still, the arrival on the map of sponsored stations fits into a pattern of growing commercialisation on the tube. in the financial year 2010-11 transport for london brought in £107m ($166m) in advertising revenue. although that represented just 2.7% of its overall revenues, it was twice as much money as the tube operator had raised five years earlier. cbs outdoor, which has signed a multi-year deal with the tube, has amassed a network of 1,200 digital panels on escalators and 126 projectors that beam adverts across tracks. station “dominations”, where a sponsor takes every advertising spot in part of a tube station, are becoming more popular. the arrival of underground wi-fi, this summer, will make digital shopping easier.
尽管如此，赞助车站的出现只是地铁日益商业化的一个缩影。根据伦敦运输公司2010-11财年的统计，广告收入达到了1.07亿英镑（约合1.66亿美元），虽然只占总收入的2.7%，但这已是5年前的2倍。哥伦比亚户外传媒已经和地铁公司签署了一份多年期的合同，包括自动扶梯上的1200个数字屏，还有轨道横梁上的126个投影机组成的广告网。由车站主导，赞助商在地铁站选择所有可用的广告地点，这种方式现在越来越流行。随着今夏地铁无线网络（wi-fi）的覆盖，网上购物也变得越来越容易。
christian wolmar, a transport historian, points out that there has been advertising on the system since its earliest days: photos from the late 19th century show cards inside train carriages advertising domestic products. in some ways the tube was far more open to private enterprise than it is today. the lines were at first run as distinct enterprises. for a spell, different companies ran the clockwise and anti-clockwise trains on the circle line, even maintaining separate ticket booths. the system may be burrowing back to its roots.
运输历史学家christian wolmar指出，在该系统做广告其实很早就有了：从20世纪的照片可以看出，那时火车车厢内部还有国产商品的广告牌，从某些方面来说，对于民营企业，那时候地铁公司比现在更加开放。因为最开始的时候，每条线路由单独的公司运营，不同的公司运营顺时针和逆时针的环线，甚至售票口也是独立的。以此看来，现在的地铁系统有回到以前的趋势了。