COMPUTAPORT 2002

COMPUTAPORT 2002

ACI conference tells airports to move cautiously when implementing IT

By John Boyce, Contributing Editor

April 2002

HOUSTON, TX -- The universe of information technology is expanding in so many directions and at such a rapid rate that unsuspecting airport managers could find themselves swept in the wrong direction for what could be the right business reasons. Such words of caution were the overriding them of this year's ACI Computaport Conference & Exhibition.

Get Ready for Bluetooth

HOUSTON, TX. - Adriaan Kramer of the Customer eValue Institute in the Netherlands says Bluetooth could be the solution to many problems faced by airports in the future.

Bluetooth, in short, is a short-range communications facility activated by a chip card or a cell phone which, as it develops, will be able to start a passenger's airport experience as he or she approaches the facility.

"Bluetooth is always-on functionality," Kramer says. "That means, as soon as you arrive at an airport and you come near to an antenna the system recognizes you. You must be a member of the airport and you must have a registered Bluetooth ID. It works within 2 meters (78.74 inches) of an antenna. You can drive up to the car park and the gate will open because the system recognizes you as a member."

Once inside the terminal, Kramer says, the passenger can go to areas marked off by blue circles. In the blue circle, the airport recognizes the passenger's Bluetooth number and sends a short message asking for identification either by voice, by a PIN code, or facial recognition. Facial recognition would require a cell phone with a camera, which, Kramers says, Sony and Ericsson are developing.

"Then," Kramer continues, "the airport can send a message to say, KLM, saying, `I have here Mr. Kramer identified, authenticated, and he says he has a ticket with you.' KLM then checks you in. Then I go to the baggage check in. I identify myself again. I drop my baggage and go to the gate. The network can follow me and if it calculates that I am so far from the gate that I cannot make it, it sends me a short message, saying please hurry up."

Baggage check-in is made easier because the passenger simply comes to a designated check-in area, a door opens, the baggage is automatically tagged, screened, and accepted.

Kramer says Bluetooth can reduce the airport cost per departing passenger by $8. He also says that Bluetooth will also be inexpensive to install. "The cost for infrastructure is about $20,000 per kilometer (5/8 mile) and at an average airport you need five kilometers."

As outlined by John Jarrell in the opening presentation of the two-day event, hosted by Airports Council International here in February, the right reasons for IT implementation are cost containment, improved operational efficiencies, and enhanced security. In other words, good stewardship, good management.

Speaking of developing an integrated operational database that could interface with other systems, Jarrell, the senior vice president for airport and desktop services at SITA, an information technology and telecommunications company, points out the major business value IT has to an airport.

"Any time you can share information among all these different agencies and different types of systems," Jarrell says, "you will improve your operational efficiency, lower cost, and enhance security because you'll be dealing with the same information, the same passenger information, same employee information, or whatever it might be."

How to get to this heightened state of management by choosing the right technology is, of course, the trick. It's not about getting the latest and greatest in information technology. It's about getting what fits the individual airport. While many of the speakers at the conference represent companies responsible for the burgeoning array of technologies, some introduced a note of caution when approaching the purchase and implementation of any information technology.