The end of lost baggages thanks to AI ?

In June 2018, IATA (International Air Transport association) will oblige all airline companies to track constantly every luggage. SITA, a multinational information technology company which provides IT and telecommunication services to the air transport industry, recently released a report explaining the opportunity to increase the traveller journey.

Indeed, thanks to the automatisation of the various processes through artificial intelligence, significant progresses could be made. The idea is to use connected systems that communicate between them without the help of human beings.

For airlines and IATA it is an opportunity to reduce the costs of baggages handling even though this cost has been divided by two in the last decade. It also improves industry image by showing that airlines take their responsibilities and care about their travellers.

Today most of baggages tracking is done with markers called RFID ( radio frequency identification). The Hong Kong airport is the first airport which has implemented these markers into its baggage handling central system. It allows the travellers to follow their luggages during the journey into the airport and reduce the stress or wait and thus insatisfaction. The airport is testing at the moment a system that enables the tracking of baggages trolleys with machine learning and image processing, with a precision rate of 92%. In the near future it will allow travellers to follow the baggages from the plane to the baggage claim.

Source: https://goo.gl/images/KmVqrA

Indeed, one of the most important trend according to the digitalization marketing is the Artificial Intelligence which is more and more used by the different tourism companies.

One of the most current problem that client meet during his travel is the loss of his luggage. According to the International Society of Aeronautical Telecommunication, 82 000 luggages per day are lost in the diverse airport all around the world and 10 000 in Europe. Moreover, 2,5% of the luggages lost are either definitely lost, broken or damaged.  

In 2010, 30 million luggages recorded have been lost. This kind of problem is due to either a mistake of points during the stopover, either a problem of bar code or an incorrect manipulation of the luggage.

Even if the client can be damaged, the airlines company can loss the loyalty of its guests and receive many complaints and consequently the company will see its brand image and reputation touched. Moreover this is a waste of time for the customer who is looking for a fast service during its travel.

That’s why, thanks to this new technology, this is will improve the satisfaction of the guest, they will be more reassure and relax during their travels and company will be more able to manage the follow up of the different luggages.

We can confirm that this new Artificial Intelligence will be more and more generalized in all the airports.

Source article: Pellegrin, H. (2018, March 07). Le potentiel de l'intelligence artificielle dans le tracking de bagages.

Retrieved March 12, 2018, from http://www.tom.travel/2018/03/07/le-potentiel-de-lintelligence-artificielle-dans-le-tracking-de-bagages%E2%80%89/

Autres source: Statistiques mondiales écologiques en temps réel*. (n.d.).

Retrieved March 12, 2018, from https://www.planetoscope.com/tourisme/944-nombre-de-bagages-perdus-dans-les-aeroports.html

New Technologies: Revolution is in the Air

For April’s post, we have chosen to talk about the use of new technologies to enhance guests experience when taking a flight. To do so, we will talk about Ryan Ghee’s article titled “15 solutions that can improve today’s airport experience” from futuretravelexperience.com. These solutions have been retrieved by the author after his visit at the Passenger Terminal Expo in Cologne happening last month.

In this post, we have selected 6 of these solutions and we will explain concisely how they work. Then we will discuss about how they could be used for events and exhibitions.

source: freedigitalphotos.net

The baggage revolution

Most of the novelties showcased at the exhibition aim at improving and speeding up bag drop. Technologies that enable automated and self-service processes lead to gain in time for airport guests.

1.  Materna Cabin Luggage Check

This solution allows passengers to weigh and measure their hand luggage at the very beginning of their arrival at the airport. The aim is to know way before reaching the gate if the bag satisfies airlines’ carry-on specifications.

2. Biometric bag drop

Before starting, here is a short definition of biometrics: “measurement and statistical analysis of people's physical and behavioral characteristics.” 

This solution enables to “complete the check-in and bag drop process without the need for a manual passport check by a human agent.

3. My Check self-bag drop

This solution works with CCM (computer controlled motion). It is a fully automated self-service baggage drop. The difference with other solution of the same type is that it is more “stylish”, the check-in design, capacity and capability remain the same than with traditional baggage drop.

4. RIMOWA Electronic Tag

It is an electronic tag that replaces the usual paper label you put on your luggage. It is integrated to your RIMOWA luggage and displays digital data module with the same format than paper labels.

5. Contactless bag drop

It is a two steps process that does not require any assistance. The first step is to tag your bag at a kiosk. The second step is to deposit the bag. The advantage is that you do not need to scan documents or press buttons as 4 sensors automatically detect the tag, measure and weigh your bag.

6. Offsite tagging

This solution enables passengers to edit their tag before going to the airport; at their hotel or the train station for example. Thanks to your pre-tagged bag, you avoid queue and gain time.

Applicability for events & exhibitions

What we can capture from these 6 solutions is that self-service and automated processes are becoming the norm. This can fasten attendees’ registration as it is already done through online registration. As well as with beacons thanks to which you can enter an exhibition without having to show your ticket.

One idea of application would be for wardrobe. We have experienced during ITB the “wardrobe process”. If you arrive at a time where it is very crowded you may be discouraged to leave your coat or your bag. A solution to this could be a self-bag and coat drop. It will be faster and let you know in advance if there is no more space available. 

Also, during the ITB at some point of time there was no more room for luggage. There could be a device outside or inside the venue from which you can measure and weight your luggage. By doing so, it gets easier to manage the number of luggage for the wardrobe. If there is no more room, the attendee will know it in advance and will not have to queue.

Lise Cimbolini 

& Truc Duc Nguyen

The Airports of the Future: fully biometric?

As worldwide passenger numbers are constantly increasing, also competition in the industry of air travel and aviation does. To attract more and more savvy passengers towards the best service or deals, airports have to offer the simplest, fastest and personalized service experience ever.
This push airports to be more focused on their visitors, who are becoming more service-conscious and highly digitized shoppers. But to do this, a deeper knowledge of who are the passengers, what they want and what they need is required. And, mostly important in this context, how they move through and use the airports locations.

This leads to the requirement of measuring passenger flow. By doing it, airports could:
- Better allocate the staff and improve efficiency (having identified quickly the bottleneck)
- Reduce waiting time of passengers
- Make them happy
- Increase retail purchasing

Source http://www.blipsystems.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Passenger-profile_new-e1417524195135.png

There are different ways to measure passengers flow:
 Using tracking device that works via Bluetooth, GSM and/or WiFi (but there are three main issues: lower capture rates, privacy concerns, and the fact that passengers have to switch on the device)
  Using people counters, such as beam and thermal counters, synthetic intelligence, and video analytic (here we also have some issues: significantly dropped accuracy with the ordinary flows, systems often blocked or give the information only about number of people and not about time between different touch points).
 Using Facial Recognition, which can capture really high number of anonymous facial images, track and measure the flow through touch points, such as check-in, security and passport control.

The last method makes also easier the setting of any threshold or alerts and improve efficiency in operation.

Source http://www.futuretravelexperience.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/nftw-aruba-airport.jpg

Ideally, in a fully biometric airport there will be no need for ID cards, tickets or even passports for passengers and workers as well, which would flow in a faster and more secure way through automated check points. This would enable a seamless and stress free journey for each single passenger through the airport. 
We believe that this passenger could be happier and indeed more willing to spend and also to return again in this airport for its next experience.
The same picture of the future airport was delineated by Simone Menne, the CFO of Lufthansa, during her speech an ITB 2015 on the 4th March. She noticed that even if in the last ten years lot of changes occurred thanks to mobility and innovation, today the air travel process - from inspiration through sharing the experiences - still seems to be cumbersome: queuing, disruption, waiting and boring time. 
She also agreed that new technologies could be helpful, and cited not only virtual and augmented reality or biometrics but also artificial intelligence and machine-to-machine technology, assuming that in the future airport service providers could talk together and through our devices could give us information about the whole process. And this is the point of concern.
As in the case of beacons, a great effort and focus is required by all the entities working with airports: handlers or control authorities, airlines, technology partners, business partners, and other airports as well. 

Leonarda Miglietta and Nadya Levitskaya

How technology is changing the today’s airport /1

Looking on the web for recent technology’s trends influencing the Travel and Tourism industry you can found lot of useful articles and research papers. Taking a further insight at the airport sector, you can go to the SITA website and download for free their 2014 Airport IT trends survey, being SITA “the world's leading specialist in air transport communications and information technology” (source http://www.sita.aero/about-sita) as they said. This survey covers a good numbers of airports (the top 200 airport operators, 106 senior IT executives answering) in all the main world regions representing near half of the global passenger traffic. On it, you can find some well-known words like cloud services, geo-location, Wi-Fi 2.0, Near Field Communication, digital tags, wearables. Then you find a word “Beacon”, which, according to the survey, represents only the 3% of the current major programmes in these airports, but it leads to a really impressive number of initiatives (30%) that the same airports plan to have by 2017 (pilots or trials).

To get started with this buzzword you can read an insight paper on the SITA website, you can go to the Business Insider UK website where you find very recent articles on their growth and a FAQ section as well. You can also read an article on the Umbel blog website citing companies in airports/airlines industry that have trials in place or use Beacon Technology (Virgin Atlantic, London’s Heathrow Airport, Japan Airlines in Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, American Airlines in Dallas Airport) to some extent.

And after reading all of them, firstly you discover that half of the top 100 retailers in the U.S. have already tested beacons during 2014 and that the beacon installed base is expected to grow by triple-digit rates over the next few years (Insider UK’s article). And then, you find that the first airport in the world with a complete deployment of beacons is Miami International Airport, covering entrances, check-in, gate, baggage claim and valet parking zones throughout the Airport.

Beacons can be used in many situations where location and information about the customers can be used together to send relevant information to them, by the means of beacons installed at the main touch points: check-in, passport control, bag drop, departure gates, lounge area, baggage areas, parking areas, retails and stores. These last two seem to be the most revenue related ones (from the airport point of view) and here Beacons can enable a list of possible actions (redeeming targeted coupons, hands-free payment, earning points, picking up duty free items, etc.) that could to enhance the in-store shopping experience.

Now it comes clear why airports want to spend heavily on this technology as they can see a lot of benefits potentially coming from these little devices. Yes, they are little and they need very little energy and little amount of money to be bought !

....little but powerful !!!

Source http://estimote.com                                                   

Yet, they can scan for Bluetooth 4.0 devices (and they can trigger apps) on a much greater distance than NFC (70 meters is the advertised range, with some inaccuracy of +/- 5 meters, (SITA’s Insight Paper), and they can talk with both Android and IOS devices sending little bit of data to the apps installed on them (even if the app is not running – in the Apple scenario).

Summing up, beacons enable airports to connect with travelers, interact with them, collect data about their behavior and preferences, and change the overall traveler airport’s experience.

Is this only shining and positive? yes and ...no, as still there are some questions coming from the nature of airports as shared or common environment, such as: who will be responsible for the deployment of them or who can have access to them, once they have been installed? How to manage multiple beacons at once? And there are other questions about the main competitors in this arena (Samsung and Apple) which prefer to compete instead of collaborating, so ...a retailer who wants to adopt the beacon technology, theoretically, needs two set of beacons installed?

Stay tuned as the answers could come in the next few months.

Leonarda Miglietta and Nadya Levitskaya

Source

http://www.sita.aero/file/11978/Airport-IT-Trends-Survey-2014.pdf

http://www.sita.aero/file/10782/beacons-white-paper.pdf

https://www.umbel.com/blog/mobile/15-companies-using-beacon-technology/

http://www.businessinsider.com/beacons-are-the-most-important-new-retail-tech-2014-7?IR=T

http://skift.com/2014/09/24/miami-international-airport-makes-commitment-to-beacon-technology/