Students test tracker
System to make reef trips safer
A PIONEERING passenger management system set to revolutionise the Far North tourism industry will later this month trial infra-red hand scanning technology on local high school students.
The Tourism Onboard Management System (TOMS) has been designed to ensure the safety of Reef tripping passengers. Built into the sophisticated system is a way of accounting for passengers from the moment they check in to the Cairns Reef Fleet Terminal to the moment they alight on returning from the Reef.
Designer of TOMS, Tony Raftis, said the technology will do away with the manual counting of passengers on and off a vessel with handheld clickers.
“The legislation says the skipper must know where his passengers are,” he said.
“And sometimes that is difficult as some can be on the pontoon, some are on the boat, some are snorkelling and some are diving.”
Mr Raftis said the system was a foolproof way to avoid deaths such as the famous case of the Lonergans off Crispins Reef in 1998 and more recently the diving death of British tourist Bethany Farrell at Blue Pearl Bay in the Whitsundays.
Beginning using near-field communication technology on wristbands, the system has evolved to now use infra-red scanning and the unique biometric pattern created by the network of veins in a passenger’s hand.
“We have been able to turn a passenger into a digital asset,” Mr Raftis said.
“At the moment all the skipper knows is he takes 300 passengers out and makes sure there is 300 before returning.
“If one went missing they would not have a clue who it was.”
The scanning of a passenger’s hand is used to link a passenger’s details provided when a tour is booked.
“There is massive potential for this technology and the palm vein technology is super secure because no two palm are alike,” he said.
On September 17, a class of students from the Cairns State High School will “palm on” using the technology in what Mr Raftis calls stress testing of the system.