High-tech devices reducing wait times at airport
Feedback mostly positive during tests at Edmonton International
From the moment travellers at the Edmonton International Airport approach the airline check-in counters to the time they reach their gates, ceiling-mounted sensors track them as dots in a computer program.
If the “dots” spend too long lingering in the security lineup, authorities will add more screeners or open another lane to speed people through.
Since February, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, or CATSA, has been testing the sensors, along with four automated gates, at Edmonton’s airport — the only airport in the country with the technology.
On Tuesday, CATSA demonstrated the equipment as the Crown corporation responsible for screening air passengers and their luggage prepared for the busy summer travel season.
The sensor system follows passengers through the screening process and all the way to the gate, CATSA spokesman Mathieu Larocque said.
“It gives us very useful information on wait times, on throughput and on passenger loads at any given day on any given hour,” he said.
“It helps us with our staffing and to resolve security incidents and find passengers who might need to be brought back to security for security reasons.”
The system can also reunite passengers with items lost at security screening.
“With this new technology, combined with our CCTV (closed-circuit television), we can see immediately where the passenger left the bin, where he is at the airport, and we can bring the item back to him before they depart.”
CATSA has also installed four gates that automate several functions previously handled by staff, including scanning boarding passes and assigning passengers to lanes.
Under the new system, travellers scan their passes once, instead of twice, to save time.
“The automation of these functions will allow us to use these screen officers at more critical points in the screening process,” Larocque said.
During the pilot project, screeners are still working side-by-side with the automated equipment to compare data.
A less flashy innovation is the introduction of new screening tables called manual-split lanes that separate bags that need to be searched from cleared luggage.
“If your bag goes through the X-ray and something needs to be looked at, the screening officer will grab the bag and send it down a different path where it will be searched off to the side,” he said. “Choke points are reduced tremendously because of these new tables.”
The cost of the trial is $819,000.
Since testing started in February, surveys show most passengers like the system and find it easy to use, Larocque said.