Daily BrewEdmonton airport testing sensor tracking system to reduce lineups
By Elianna Lev
The least favourite part of every traveller’s journey — waiting in lineups at the airport — may soon be a long-forgotten memory, thanks to a pilot project that’s being tested at Edmonton International Airport.
The new technology called QMS (queue management system) tracks passengers through a series of sensor-equipped, ceiling-mounted machines, as they make their way through the airport.
The machines, which are about the size of a modem, registers passengers as dots on a computer, tracking the time it takes for them to move from the check-in to the gate. If the dots are slow moving, airport staff will send out more screeners or open additional lanes to keep things in motion.
“These sensors are there to better plan and give us better data,” says Mathieu Larocque, spokesman for Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA), the federal agency responsible for screening passengers and luggages. “They’re helping with our management and movement of our operations. It gives us real-time information.”
Over time, the system will register specific times and dates that have been shown to be busier, so that the airport is staffed with the appropriate amount of screening officers.
The sensors have been in operation since February, in conjunction with four automated gates.
Passengers generally have to scan their boarding pass twice while navigating through the airport – once at the entrance to get through security and once at the gate.
With the automated gates, travellers only have to scan once and are then directed to the appropriate line, a task that was previously handled by airport staff.
“It automates functions that are currently being done by screening officers,” Larocque says. “This will allow us to redeploy the resources elsewhere in the screening process where they are more needed to do actual screening, as opposed to directing traffic before the checkpoint.”
There’s no set date for when the pilot is expected to end, as CATSA continues to adjust the system to make sure the data is reliable. So far, no other airport is participating in the pilot, though Larocque says that could change.
“When we’re comfortable with the system, we might look at national deployment,” he says. “We still need more time to adjust and improve the process.”
There were several factors that led CATSA to choose the Edmonton airport to test the program, namely the geography of the checkpoint. Its layout allows the space for lineups and its high ceilings are well suited for the sensors, allowing them to pick up a wider area.
The pilot project costs $819,000.
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