GlossaryFormats
Gantry
Also called Overhead gantryFoot-over-bridge panel
A gantry is an outdoor advertising structure that spans a carriageway overhead, so traffic passes underneath it rather than alongside — most often a purpose-built span across a road, or advertising panels carried on a foot-over-bridge.
In more detail
A gantry is the only common street format that sits directly in the driver's line of travel. Everything else asks the eye to move sideways; a gantry is straight ahead. That is its whole advantage and it is a real one, particularly on approaches to a junction where traffic is slowing anyway.
The trade-off is that gantries are scarce and heavily controlled. Because the structure hangs over a live carriageway, permission usually involves the road-owning authority as well as the municipal advertisement wing, and in several cities gantry rights are tendered as a defined set rather than permitted case by case. Foot-over-bridge panels behave similarly — the bridge is public infrastructure, so the advertising rights are typically held under a concession.
A gantry is also the format most likely to be quoted to you as available when it is not. Because it looks impressive in a proposal and everybody wants one, it is worth asking specifically who holds the current right and when it expires, rather than accepting the position on a plan.
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How is a gantry different from a hoarding?
Position relative to the traffic. A hoarding sits beside the road and is read at an angle; a gantry spans the road and is read head-on by everyone travelling under it.
That changes what it is good at. A gantry delivers near-unavoidable exposure to one direction of traffic on one stretch. A hoarding campaign delivers repeated exposure across a catchment. They are different jobs, and a single gantry is not a substitute for a plan.
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Who grants permission for a gantry?
Typically more than one body, which is why lead times are longer. The municipal advertisement wing licenses the display, and the authority that owns or maintains the carriageway has a say in the structure over it. Where the road is a state highway or a national highway inside city limits, that adds a further authority.
In several cities the rights are tendered rather than granted individually. We confirm which regime applies and who currently holds the right before a gantry goes into a plan, because a gantry on a proposal is not the same thing as a gantry you can book.
Where it earns its place
- Junction and flyover approaches, where traffic is already slowing and looking ahead.
- A single dominant statement on the route into a city — an airport road, a highway entry, a stadium approach.
- Event and season windows where one unmissable position beside a broader plan does more than adding another dozen panels.
- Foot-over-bridge panels in dense commuter locations, where the audience is on foot and stationary for a moment.
And where it does not
A gantry is a bad first buy. It is expensive per position, scarce, slow to permission, and it covers one direction on one stretch — which means a campaign built around a gantry has bought a landmark and no coverage. It is also the wrong format for anything needing more than a few words, because it is read at speed and head-on, with the reader's attention already committed to the road.
What moves the price
The variables, not a rate.
We do not publish a rate card. We own no media, so every plan is negotiated against several vendors — a published figure would describe what we would like to charge rather than what the market will take.
- 01The corridor and which direction of flow it faces.
- 02Whether the right is tendered or individually permitted, and how much of the term is left to run.
- 03Hold period and whether the position is contested by other advertisers that season.
- 04Illumination and, on newer spans, whether the display is printed or digital.
- 05Production, mounting and the traffic-management cost of installing over a live carriageway.
Questions we are actually asked
Gantry, in practice.
Can I book a single gantry for a two-week campaign?
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Sometimes, but it is rarely the right buy. The production and mounting cost of a gantry is largely fixed regardless of how long the display runs, so a short window pays full setup for a fraction of the exposure. If the objective genuinely is two weeks, transit and retail formats usually do more with the same money.
Are foot-over-bridge panels the same as a gantry?
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Commercially they behave similarly — both span the road and are usually held under a concession rather than permitted individually — but the audience differs. A gantry is read by traffic passing beneath at speed; a foot-over-bridge is also read by the people using the bridge, at walking pace and close range, which allows a slightly longer message.
Read next
- Hoarding
A hoarding is the Indian term for a large-format outdoor advertising panel — a printed or digital display mounted on a fixed structure beside a road, on a rooftop or on a boundary wall, sold for a defined period rather than by the number of people who pass it.
- Unipole
A unipole is an outdoor advertising display carried on a single vertical column, so the panel stands clear above the traffic with nothing supporting it from the sides — as distinct from a hoarding on a lattice frame or one fixed to a wall or roof.
- Bus Queue Shelter
A bus queue shelter, usually written BQS, is the roofed structure at a bus stop that carries advertising panels on its side and rear faces — read at close range by waiting passengers and at short range by passing traffic.
- Advertisement Tax
Advertisement tax is the charge levied by an Indian urban local body on the display of an outdoor advertisement within its limits — now more often framed as a licence or permission fee than as a tax, because the constitutional basis for a separate advertisement tax changed when GST was introduced.
Where this has a local particularity
Municipal rules, authorities and even the vocabulary change at a corporation boundary. These markets carry something specific about gantry.
Knowing the word is not the same as buying it well.
Tell us the market and the objective. We will tell you plainly whether this format is the right instrument for it.