SubscribeHand Held Products provides real-time baggage traceability for "Aéroports de Paris" (the Paris airport authority).
Aéroports de Paris (ADP) started testing its “Baggage Reconciliation and Traceability System” (SRTB) in January2004. This new automated system, which uses 150 Hand Held Products Dolphin® 7300RF mobile computers, manages and traces baggage in Terminals 1 and 2 at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.
The Dolphin mobile computers provide real-time baggage management via the local Wi-Fi network. Eric Vautier, Project Manager for the SRTB project in ADP's Computer and Telecommunications Department, describes how the Hand Held Products mobile computers play a key role in the proper operation of baggage sorting and loading.
Passenger Baggage Reconciliation
“Our main concern is to ensure that passengers are never separated from their baggage” explains Eric Vautier. “For example, we have to ensure that any baggage in transit, whose owner is only making a stopover at Roissy, arrives at its final destination safely and on time.”
Similarly, from a safety perspective, we must be able to ensure that if a passenger has checked in on a flight and is not present in the aircraft when it is due to depart, it must be possible for us to locate and offload their baggage as soon as possible in order to avoid departure delays. The Chicago Convention and a decree issued by the Ministry of Transport require air carriers to recognise this “baggage-passengers” correlation.
Until the SRTB was implemented, baggage was processed manually. This method rapidly became inadequate for the effective management of large amounts of baggage. “In 2003, we processed around 9 million pieces of baggage at CDG 1” states Mr. Vautier.
In order to handle this volume of baggage, Hand Held Products Dolphin mobile computers and the Ultra baggage management software package were brought in to help. The complete reconciliation package, which includes the software and Hand Held Products Dolphin® 7300RF mobile computers, has been in use since January 2004 and is the first stage of a “pilot study”.
A Real-time Decision Support Tool
For baggage handling staff, Dolphins are true decision support tools. They allow handlers to follow each piece of baggage in real time, from passenger check-in, to the sorting and loading of the bags into the baggage hold of the aircraft.
Procedure for Sorting and Loading the Bags into the Baggage Hold.
When a passenger checks in at an airline counter, a label with a barcode is attached to their piece of baggage. The label or tag contains information such as the flight number, the destination, the departure date, and the type of baggage. The data for each airline, by flight and by passenger, are centralized using a computer platform, and sent to the SRTB.
The baggage is then placed into containers. During this stage, a baggage handler scans the bar code on the baggage tag using a Dolphin® 7300RF. The information is sent via the local Wi-Fi network (LAN) to the SRTB database.
The system automatically and immediately checks the baggage loading status, in other words, the correlation between the flight number, the date, the destination, and the type of baggage, and returns a message that indicates to the handler whether or not the baggage may be placed in the container. The containers are also identified and indexed via another tag. At this stage, the handler can be certain that the container only contains baggage that corresponds to the right flight.
Locating Baggage
Again using a Dolphin, a handler scans the label on each container before it is loaded into the cargo hold. This way, the reconciliation system can locate precisely and rapidly any piece of baggage in the hold, so that it can be removed if the owner is missing when the flight is due to depart
Difficulties Associated with Baggage in Transit
The SRTB is also used to optimise the complex procedure of tracing baggage in transit between CDG 1 and CDG 2. The centralisation of data on each piece of baggage means that instances of mislaid baggage in transit can be limited, therefore reducing the additional cost and loss of time caused by rerouting.
Ergonomic and Convenient Terminals
ADP chose its mobile computers according to very specific criteria.“The devices had to satisfy the stringent requirements of our working environment,” comments Mr. Vautier. “Our handlers and airline agents are working practically all day and night, both indoors and outdoors.” The mobile computers therefore had to be able to function in hot, cold and humid conditions, and be dust-proof at the same time.
The Dolphin® 7300RF device has a backlit 1/8 VGA display screen, and its magnesium and polycarbonate ABS housing is very tough; it also meets IP-64 standards for moisture resistance. After five months of use, the terminals function at optimum performance levels, and ADP has not experienced any unit breakage or a loss in performance levels.
However, ADP had two other essential criteria when selecting their hardware, namely ergonomics and ease of use. Because both of these factors are available with the Hand Held Products unit, ADP chose the Dolphin® 7300RF.
Open and Secure System
The Dolphin® 7300RF uses the Windows® CE 3.0 operating system, which was another decisive factor for ADP, “as this openness relieved two of our concerns, namely security and broadcastmanagement” relates Mr. Vautier.
Unlike Wi-Fi, which is still lacking in terms of security, Windows CE allows programmers to add additional layers of encryption and software (WEP keys, VPN clients, and so on). These developments, which are invisible to the user, do not change any aspect of system operation.
Furthermore, broadcasting, including the updating and integration of new software, can be done remotely for all terminals; the operation can be done quickly and in a single step, regardless of the software application involved.
Project Outlook
Hand Held Products Adaptus™ Imaging Technology enables omni-directional reading of bar codes, and it can also read 2D codes, which might be useful to ADP, as they are currently testing these types of symbologies for potential use in the future. ADP intends to expand the SRTB project to other sites for baggage management for other airlines.
