Clever Solution Streamlines Airport Checkpoints With Screens, AI And Automated Barriers

February 28, 2022 by Dave Haynes

I am big fan of digital signage applications that may seem boring on the surface, but are spot-on in how they make something faster, better or easier.

Here’s a great example of that mantra in action – airport queues for passenger screenings and/or passport and visa checks. A pair of companies – Qmetrix from Austria and the German firm Via Guide – have developed and started marketing a solution that automates and improves managing the sometimes snaking lines for clearing checkpoints when traveling.

The solution mashes up machine learning/AI software and sensors for analyzing and managing line-ups, with digital signs that use the real-time data from queue management software to tell travellers what to do, when to do it, and where to go.

Queue management and displays at airports is not entirely new, of course. But what’s interesting here is how all that has been tied in with automated barriers for the lines. If you travel – or did before things went sideways wth COVID – you will recall the many times when you had to zig and zag up and down empty lanes that are designated by retractable belts and floor posts. They are necessary and useful at busy times, but an irritant when the checkpoint is quiet and you are late for a flight!

In this system, there are smart barriers tied to the queueing system to swing open and closed based on foot traffic. So when things are not busy, and there is no staff around to reconfigure the barriers, automation allows you to walk and pull luggage the 20 feet to a counter, instead of 200 feet for no real reason.

Mass transport is the obvious vertical application, but this has implications for things like busy retail, like an Ikea the weekend before colleges and universities move in new students.

 

  1. Isabel Muñoz says:

    I´m working in Malaga Airport and we are very intersted in this system. Please contact me via email. Thank you

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