How Airports Can Benefit From People Counting?

A lot has changed since the early days of aviation. A way of travelling once that seemed so terrifying became the most convenient medium. That is what air travel is all about, convenience. In today’s world, people are less patient and they want to get to their destination fast. The total number of passengers in 2016 is expected to reach 3.6 Billion. This is a great opportunity for this industry that will keep expanding but it is also extremely difficult to manage.

The convenience factor that makes air travel the number one choice for many business and leisure travellers needs constant supervision to sustain. The time passengers spend at the airports is equally important because of it part of the travel. Perceptions start to take shape when passengers enter the gates of airports. Every detail matters once they get into this dynamic human traffic.

Many airports rightfully leverage the benefits of people counting technologies to create a positive passenger experience.

Waiting at either security checks or check-in counters for long durations is very inconvenient for passengers. They rather sit at a restaurant to eat, buy some souvenirs for their loved ones or simply start reading the book they had bought for the trip. In order to prevent the lost time at queues, many airport managers started using queue management solutions. Using people counters to measure and analyze the queue lengths enable them to open new x-rays, gates, check-in counters so they can avoid congestion. They receive automated triggers whenever a queue reaches an alarming length and then they act accordingly.

Shopping at the airports is also a big part of the experience. Many passengers enjoy the lack of tax liabilities ad duty-free shops and buy items for themselves or gifts that they usually cannot afford. However, sometimes duty-free shops are congested due to closed check-outs or sub-optimal personnel numbers. In this case, many of the passengers leave without waiting. This not only negatively affects their experience but also decreases the revenues for duty frees and eventually the airports. Again measuring the traffic at duty-free shops brings great value to avoid lost opportunities.

To summarize, measuring the number of passengers and how they move throughout the airports is crucial to create a positive experience and to increase the revenue of airports. These two have a causality relation between each other. Thus analyzing the passenger flow is something every airport manager should consider.