YVR isn’t the only airport putting sensors and data to use. The Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG) has been utilizing the technology for years and is only continuing to grow with it.
CVG recently announced their expansion with Veovo to manage and analyze Curb-to-Flight passenger flow. CVG has been working with Veovo’s sensor technology, which tracks passengers by the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi signals of their cell phones, since 2015 and used the technology to optimize their security wait times.
“We felt that if we could bring in technology and measure what was happening in the space, which is such a critical piece of the journey of a passenger and of an airport operation, the security checkpoint, that if we could start getting quantitative and quantitatively analyzing and driving action based on that quantitative data, that it was going to be better for everyone,” said CVG’s Director of Innovation and Information Technology, Stephen Saunders.
Saunders said the project was done in the spirit of collaboration with the TSA and they were a part of the project which, ultimately, helped to improve their operations.
“Once the data started flowing, we were able to start identifying some issues that we felt like were issues and the sense that we were always seeing spikes of wait times early in the morning and we kind of identified that,” said Saunders. “They took it back and looked at their metrics and the things that they measure. And it identified that yeah, they had some areas of opportunity to adjust schedules.”
CVG will now be expanding the same technology for more of their passenger’s travel.
“The whole idea is there. Lots and lots of people in the industry have talked about road to runway, or curb to seat, and there's all these different words for it. But really what we are executing on is truly road to runway,” said Saunders.
As soon as people come onto CVG’s campus, we want to start capturing data and “start that stopwatch,” Saunders said – understanding what it takes for someone when they pull onto the CVG campus until the time they leave on their plane.
“What is that total dwell time? What does that total experience look like? Because now we can start understanding, are there roadway infrastructure challenges? Are people getting lost? Are people not finding parking or rental car locations efficiently? Are we losing parking revenue to off airport parking vendors based on this challenge? Are we having issues in the parking lot with people finding spaces? And then, how long does it take for someone to walk into the facility? Do we need to start looking at different shuttle route times and things like that,” he continued.
Once CVG begins to understand all of those processes, Saunders said they can begin outfitting areas with the appropriate tech and personnel to decrease wait and wayfinding times even more.
“So there is certainly a connectivity along the whole chain that is not only going to benefit the passenger, because if there are issues that we have not been able to put our thumb on, that stand out in the data, then we can address those, but it can also help address, things after security like concessions for example, to make it a more enjoyable experience for travelers,” Saunders said.
