EU project aims to speed up the passage through airports by 60 minutes

The PASSME (Personalised Airport Systems for Seamless Mobility and Experience) project is harnessing the expertise of a variety of disciplines to streamline passengers’ paths through airports: aviation, transport, academia, design, technology, and communications are all fields the project draws upon.

The project has set out four breakthroughs it is now focussing on. Luggage flow is clearly an area that would benefit from improvement and it has developed a conceptual approach that is currently being tested by a start-up company called Travel Light. The next area of attention is the design of a passenger forecast system to manage the flow of people through the airport, currently at a conceptual stage.

To address the third breakthrough, smoothing the boarding process, the project has already installed a test fuselage at their facilities to explore how best to improve aircraft and airport interiors. Their concepts are soon to be tested at Amsterdam Schiphol and Hamburg airports.

Having established that pushed information causes extra stress whereas information pulled by the passenger according to their needs speeds things up, the project is currently developing a smartphone app to provide passengers with key airport information.

A baggage-free airport on the horizon?

With these goals in mind, PASSME explains that the changes they are proposing to the baggage process have the potential to speed things up the most. The project assessment is that these could save 40 minutes off the journey time. They are developing ways in which door-to-door baggage delivery could be implemented, resulting in a bag-free airport. PASSME states the number of mishandled items at a parcel service company is close to zero whereas 2-3 bags in every 1 000 is typical in aviation. But they also acknowledge this would take a change of perception on the part of the average passenger.

A personalised approach to improving passenger experience

The multi-disciplinary dimension of the project brings on board input from software developers currently working on the concept of a smartphone app that will assess a passenger’s self-reported stress levels. They are now considering ways in which the app could then offer advice on the best locations in the surrounding area in which to relax. The project believes big data is key to offering relevant information in real time to passengers and the PASSME app, now being conceptualised, aims to do just that.

For more information, please see:
project website