Business need
Unstructured queuing areas are a big challenge for any airport. Striving to manage massive passenger flows, airport operators experience disjointed queue management through the lack of visibility into the queuing process. It results in low desk throughput, long waiting times, and, accordingly, unhappy passengers.
To boost operational efficiency and improve customer service, airport operators need a smart software solution that will provide them with real-time insights into the queue performance and help optimize resource utilization.
And we’ve developed such a system.
Solution
For this project, we have developed a robust AI-powered video analytics software for effective queue management.
The system reviews video streams from CCTV cameras across an airport, analyzes the data, and visualizes it in the form of heatmaps. It provides airport management with a clear, detailed picture of queuing areas.
The software also measures the key KPIs for each queue, including queue outflow, queue length, desk throughput, process time, and estimated waiting time.
The system helps enhance resource allocation by identifying bottlenecks and overflows for individual queues and notifying airport management about them.
Our customer is an airport operator who struggles with inefficient queue monitoring and management.
Passenger detection. In unstructured airport areas such as check-ins and bag drop-offs, passengers can mix up with greeters, airport staff, or visitors. One of the main challenges the system had to solve was differentiating passengers from greeters, airport workers, and visitors to ensure precise queue analysis and waiting times measurement and forecasting.
Counting. For this project, the system had to count the number of passengers standing in unruly lines.
Real-time analysis. The software had to identify groups of people, quickly analyze the data generated in the video stream, and provide a quick real-time response — trigger alert in case of bottlenecks or overflows and forecast waiting times for each queue.
What was achieved:
- The queue management process is optimized thanks to heatmaps from video streams;
- The system eliminates the need for engaging additional staff and increasing the number of counters;
- The system helps deliver better service and boost passenger experience;
- With our software in place, there’s no need for manual queue monitoring.
Project Results
With our software in place, airport operators can:
- Efficiently plan staff and resource allocation according to passenger flow and demand;
- Reduce waiting times and optimize desk throughput to improve passenger experience and loyalty;
- Gain valuable insight into airport operations to identify required improvements;
- Completely automate queue monitoring process;
- Anticipate passenger overflow and bottlenecks and instantly address them.