Technology adoption has been fast paced at Indian airports. While the pandemic has thrown up new challenges for the airport sector, it has also opened up opportunities for the government and private airport developers to deploy new and innovative technologies to ensure passenger safety and seamless airport operations. Contactless technologies for security checks and passenger boarding/deboarding, mobile apps for commercial services at airports, and video analytics for passenger facilitation will play a key role in achieving these goals.
Video analytics
Monitoring passenger movement has become crucial for airports, particularly during the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak, to ensure passenger safety. In this context, video analytics has emerged as a critical component in enabling safe passenger movement and ensuring adherence to physical distancing norms on a real-time basis. Particularly in post-lockdown scenarios, Artificial Intelligence-based video surveillance systems could be used to preserve the order of passenger flow and detect overcrowding at airport terminals. Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) has been using video analytics as a supervisory as well as passenger-focused tool. During the ongoing pandemic, the airport operator is also planning to implement video analytics for ensuring physical distancing and passenger safety.
Contactless technologies and mobile apps
Airports are now switching to digital and contactless technologies for passenger boarding/deboarding, and encouraging the use of mobile applications by passengers for tracking flight schedules and availing other commercial services at airports. Besides, replacing conventional hand-held scanners at airports by body scanners can significantly contribute to maintaining safe distancing between security personnel and passengers during the security check. The body scanners use electromagnetic waves to generate high resolution images of unusual objects concealed under passenger clothing and these anomalies are then superimposed on the image of a mannequin to protect privacy. The technology is non-intrusive and only detects objects on a person’s body for security screening purposes, without physically removing clothes or making physical contact. Installation of such scanners can do away with the need for pat-down searches for passengers. Currently, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) is working on deploying about 200 body scanners at various airports.
The government has also launched DigiYatra to facilitate seamless passenger movement without the need for any paperwork at touchpoints in airports. At present, AAI is working on rolling out a pilot study on DigiYatra by end 2020, with four airports to begin with, namely, the Kolkata, Varanasi, Vijayawada and Pune airports. Once implemented, it will significantly reduce check-in time for passengers by doing away with the need for physical documentation. With the help of DigiYatra, passengers will be automatically processed based on facial recognition systems at various check-points. In addition, this will also facilitate self-bag drop and check-in, using facial recognition to identify pax and data recall.
Technology initiatives by major airport operators
Delhi international airport
In order to ensure adequate physical distancing while passenger boarding and deboarding at the Delhi international airport, various Scan and Fly and common-use self-service kiosks have been made available for passengers for web check-in before entering the terminal. At the entry gates of Terminal T2, 10 e-boarding kiosks have been deployed to establish a contactless process for boarding. Besides, eight e-boarding kiosks have been installed at the main security hold area and four at the express check-in lane.
DIAL has operationalised several technology-based unique facilities at Delhi airport, including especially designed UV-based tunnels (to disinfect checkpoint trays and baggage), a mobile UV tower (to disinfect surfaces in the terminal area) and handheld UV device. In addition, a passenger trolley disinfection system and walk-in shoe sanitiser mats are also unique facilities for passenger safety. Meanwhile, a live CCTV feed of the UV scanning process mounted at the airport’s baggage reclaim hall allows passengers to see the disinfecting process, in which high intensity UV lamps are being used for online disinfection of bags. To enhance passenger safety and comply with Covid-19 safety measures, mobile disinfecting towers have been developed and provided at the airport to disinfect various locations at terminal buildings. Besides, sensor-based taps in passenger washrooms, foot-operated sanitiser dispensers, sensor-based drinking water and paddle-operated drinking water fountains have been installed for contactless use.
Passengers at the Delhi and Hyderabad airports are also being encouraged to download the HOI app, a dedicated AI-enabled app developed for contactless commerce. It can also be used for placing contactless food orders. A cognitive and intuitive travel app, it will help travellers in navigating the airport seamlessly. This app has several valuable features for passengers such as real-time flight status alerts, boarding gate and belt information, airport facility information, time to gate and waiting estimates, and weather at destination, amongst others. Passengers can also avail of Delhi airport’s unique food delivery service, Food Genie, under which passengers can buy meals via interactive self-ordering kiosks at food courts in T3’s domestic and international departure zones. Digital payments are also being encouraged to minimise contact.
Hyderabad international airport
GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited (GHIAL) has been consistently working towards making the travel space safe for all passengers, right from when they enter the airport premises till they board the aircraft. GHIAL has deployed 48 self-check-in kiosks with a touchless technology, with the help of which passengers can scan a QR code displayed on each kiosk and capture the screen of the kiosk on their mobile phones to complete the check-in process and receive the print of boarding card and baggage tags for bag drop-offs immediately. Passengers can take advantage of Hyderabad airport’s unique paperless e-boarding system to travel using electronic boarding passes stored on their mobile phones. The airport has also deployed smart cameras and scanners at each departure gate. Passengers need to display a government-issued ID and scan the barcode with the camera-cum-scanner which helps Central Industrial Security Force personnel validate the passengers’ credentials while maintaing adequate physical distancing and upon satisfaction allowing them entry into the terminal. GHIAL has also set up UV disinfection tunnels for luggage trolleys at the departure and arrival areas. The airport has also deployed 40 UV ovens across retail stores for passenger safety. The equipment has 360-degree UV exposure, with multifocal UV light and 100 per cent surface coverage to ensure that all pathogens and viruses are neutralised.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, in coordination with the Asian Development Bank, has provided the Hyderabad international airport with a state-of-the-art thermal scanner – a mass fever screening system – funded by UNICEF. The new ceiling-mounted system automatically adjusts and adapts to the surrounding ambient temperature without any human intervention. With its intuitive user interface and dualdisplay (day camera and infrared), it provides easy identification of passengers with elevated temperature, while simplifying operations and minimising conatact. GHIAL has also scaled up its National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) FASTag car parking in collaboration with the National Payments Corporation of India, integrating over 10 NETC FASTag issuer banks. The airport now offers India’s first and only fully contactless airport car parking experience.
Challenges and the way forward
A number of technologies are being deployed at airports abroad as well as at some Indian private sector airports in large metropolitan cities. Air passengers have a high degree of expectation from airports in terms of adoption of modern technological tools. Thus, there is a constant quest for improvement and change. However, any area of technological upgradation has its own challenges. Apart from the conventional hardware- and software-related challenges, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has thrown up additional challenges in technological upgradation. AAI has been trying to implement facial recognition software at some of the airports to ensure seamless and contactless check-in. While the plan was in place and implementation was about to begin, the virus outbreak delayed project implementation.
Once traffic figures reach pre-Covid levels, India is expected to be the third largest aviation market in the world by 2030, after the US and China. There will thus be a large number of passengers travelling as well as a sizeable number of airports and aircraft operating in the country. Managing this will require advanced technologies and the sector will thus have to become more technology intensive going forward.
Based on inputs from GHIAL and DIAL