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Improving on Passenger and Baggage Processes at Airports with RFID
Katalin Emese Bite
Budapest University of Technology and Economics Faculty of Transportation Engineering, Department of Transport Economics Hungary 1. Introduction
Today’s airports are overcrowded. The queues are long, passengers don’t have time to spend it on the airport queuing, but security restrictions must be kept. Everyone would like to lower the high cost wherever it is possible. Such an area is the amount of costs generated by the baggage loss within the air travel. Another factor is the delay of flights, which can be generated by passengers late at the boarding or even not appearing. The aircraft can only take off if all the checked-in baggage has its owner on board. If not, the baggage has to be offloaded. The costs generated by baggage loss are very high for both the airlines and the airports. The application of RFID technology would reduce these costs extremely. Today’s implementation and chip prices are very high but with time it will decrease. The average industry cost per mishandled baggage is US$100. Approximately 1% of the 1.7 billion bags that passes through the system every per year is mishandled and RFID is an ideal candidate to reduce these losses. Upon full implementation, RFID would save the industry US$760 million annually.
2. Airport passenger and baggage reconciliation systems in use
After arriving at the airport, the traveller enters the terminal building at the departure hall. There the passenger checks-in himself and his baggage, which will be part of the Departure Control System (DCS). The DCS after entering all the necessary data will print a Boarding Pass and the long Baggage Tag (BagTag) with a barcode. The Boarding Pass is printed to inform the passenger of the flight number, boarding time, boarding gate number and seat number, and it is used to identify the passenger at the security and immigration check and boarding gate too. The barcode of the
Improving on Passenger and Baggage Processes at Airports with RFID
Katalin Emese Bite
Budapest University of Technology and Economics Faculty of Transportation Engineering, Department of Transport Economics Hungary 1. Introduction
Today’s airports are overcrowded. The queues are long, passengers don’t have time to spend it on the airport queuing, but security restrictions must be kept. Everyone would like to lower the high cost wherever it is possible. Such an area is the amount of costs generated by the baggage loss within the air travel. Another factor is the delay of flights, which can be generated by passengers late at the boarding or even not appearing. The aircraft can only take off if all the checked-in baggage has its owner on board. If not, the baggage has to be offloaded. The costs generated by baggage loss are very high for both the airlines and the airports. The application of RFID technology would reduce these costs extremely. Today’s implementation and chip prices are very high but with time it will decrease. The average industry cost per mishandled baggage is US$100. Approximately 1% of the 1.7 billion bags that passes through the system every per year is mishandled and RFID is an ideal candidate to reduce these losses. Upon full implementation, RFID would save the industry US$760 million annually.
2. Airport passenger and baggage reconciliation systems in use
After arriving at the airport, the traveller enters the terminal building at the departure hall. There the passenger checks-in himself and his baggage, which will be part of the Departure Control System (DCS). The DCS after entering all the necessary data will print a Boarding Pass and the long Baggage Tag (BagTag) with a barcode. The Boarding Pass is printed to inform the passenger of the flight number, boarding time, boarding gate number and seat number, and it is used to identify the passenger at the security and immigration check and boarding gate too. The barcode of the
References: Published online 01, February, 2010 Published in print edition February, 2010 Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a fascinating, fast developing and multidisciplinary domain with emerging technologies and applications How to reference In order to correctly reference this scholarly work, feel free to copy and paste the following: Katalin Emese Bite (2010) InTech China Unit 405, Office Block, Hotel Equatorial Shanghai No.65, Yan An Road (West), Shanghai, 200040, China Phone: +86-21-62489820 Fax: +86-21-62489821