OWOSSO, Mich. One of the Midwests best-known operators, Indian Trails, has become the first coach company in the nation to install a relatively simple technology that helps assure hearing-impaired individuals on its intercity and casino runs dont miss safety messages, driver announcements, or onboard entertainment.

Called "hearing loop" technology, the system has been installed on 17 of the coaches Indian Trails operates on 34 scheduled routes serving communities in northern Michigan and the states Upper Peninsula.

The technology, which costs about $800 per bus, was paid for by the Michigan Department of Transportation, which uses federal and state money to subsidize some of the routes operated by Indian Trails, and pays for the coaches Indian Trails operates as part of the Michigan intercity bus network.

"This is proven technology that represents an enormous improvement in the onboard experience of many of our passengers who are hard of hearing," said Gordon Mackay, president of Indian Trails.

"The cost was relatively low, about $800 per bus, and very little maintenance is needed. We would eventually like to see it installed in all of our motorcoaches and in all bus stations."

MDOT also installed hearing loops in two bus stations -- in Saginaw and Bay City.

"Im quite sure this is the first American bus line with hearing loops," said David G. Myers, a professor psychology at Hope College in Holland, Mich., who has hearing loss and is one of the nations foremost advocates of hearing loops.

"The Indian Trails/MDOT installation . . . is a model of transportation accessibility for the entire country," said Myers.

Hearing loops are based on a simple technology that enables hearing aids equipped with "telecoils," or "T-coils" as they are commonly known, to amplify a single source of sound (such as a telephone, television, public-address system, or the like) instead of amplifying all sounds as ordinary hearing aids do.

Nearly 70 percent of hearing aids in the U.S. are equipped with telecoils, which are tiny coils of copper wire.

The "hearing loop" is a wire that runs around a space (be it an auditorium, church, living room, bus or airport terminal, or bus interior) and is attached to a specified sound source. The wire can be in the ceiling or along the floor.

Clear hearing

The hearing loop transmits the source sound to the telecoil in a hearing aid electromagnetically, while surrounding noises are screened out.

They become invaluable because the inside of a bus, train, plane or transportation terminal can be so noisy that passengers with ordinary hearing aids often cant separate important announcements from the sounds of fellow passengers, a crying baby, background music, or nearby conversations.

There are an estimated 1.4 million Michigan residents who have hearing loss, a number thats expected to double during the next 10 years. About 11 percent of the general population has significant hearing loss, as well as one-third of people 65 and older.

An executive with Contacta Inc. of Holland, Mich., which helped engineer the system for the first two Indian Trails coaches, said the response from passengers "was unbelievable."

Since so many Indian Trails riders are older adults, the percentage wearing hearing aids was unusually high and those individuals were thrilled they could now hear announcements, as well as A/V-system programming.

After examining the Indian Trails coaches, Contacta quickly determined that a ceiling installation was the quickest and easiest, and provided exceptional sound quality.

A second Holland-based company, Hearing Loop Systems, assisted with the custom design and engineering.

How it happened

Indian Trails became interested in the technology largely by happenstance.

A company employee, whose mother is deaf, heard about hearing loops on National Public Radio and mentioned it to his supervisor. The supervisor brought the idea up during meetings with MDOT officials, who liked the idea of testing the concept.

MDOT agreed to pay for the system, while Indian Trails offered to install it in its coaches once it was engineered. An Indian Trails technician quickly was able to master installing the system in two or three coaches in a single day.

"MDOT was excited about this opportunity to provide state funds to Indian Trails to allow Indian Trails to make hearing loops available on a portion of its fleet and two intercity bus stations," said Sharon Edgar, administrator of the MDOT Office of Passenger Transportation.

"MDOT and Indian Trails share a commitment to increasing the accessibility of our transportation system."

Havent heard of hearing loops?

If hearing loops are a new concept to you, theres a reason why.

"Because hearing aids work far better when a hearing loop is available, and because hearing loops are common in Great Britain, Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand, Im often asked why more of them havent been installed in the U.S.," said Prof. Myers.

"The answer is that our federal disability laws require most public facilities with 50 or more seats to provide unspecified assistive listening devices, which they tend to do by letting visitors borrow earphones and pocket-size receivers that tune into FM broadcast signals or infrared waves."

However, most people wont bother with earphones, notes Myers.

But if a hearing loop is available, its easy to flip a switch on a hearing aid to get sound from the telecoil. Hearing aids can customize the output of hearing loop sound to suit ones particular hearing needs, he explained.

Michigan and Wisconsin are among states that have more hearing loop installations than elsewhere.

Hundreds of west Michigan facilities, for example, are now "looped," including churches, auditoriums, libraries and community centers, as well as DeVos Convention Center and Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids.

So is the Breslin Student Events Center, home of Spartan basketball at Michigan State University, and the new Kalamazoo-Battle Creek Airport terminal.

In New York, all future taxis will be looped so passengers behind partitions can better hear the drivers. Other examples in New York include the looping of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and more than 450 information booths in the citys subway system.

In Washington, D.C., the Holocaust Museum and Congressional hearing rooms are looped, as are several meeting rooms at the Library of Congress and the main chamber of the House of Representatives.

Indian Trails was the nations 27th largest operator with a total of 65 coaches -- on the 2011 Metro Magazine "Motorcoach Top 50" list.