Airports to track passengers with radio ID tags

Telegraph | Apr 10, 2007

The small RFID tags attach to a passenger’s boarding card when they check in

Airports plan to track passengers with radio transmitter tags to cut delays and tighten security.

Manchester airport has carried out a six-month trial of the technology, which used radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to track 50,000 volunteers in the airport.

The airport’s head of innovation, Yemmi Agbegi, said: “It enabled us to see how much time passengers spent airside and how efficient our security was.”

When the system is fully operational, Manchester will attach the radio tag to a passenger’s boarding card when they check in. If the scheme is successful, it will be rolled out to other airports, including Heathrow, within a couple of years. For passengers who printed their boarding cards at home, the RFID tag will be stuck on the card as they pass through security on their way to the departure lounge.

With airports running at full capacity, a single missing passenger can cause chaos, often forcing airlines to remove all the baggage from the hold. This, in turn, can lead to the plane missing its take-off slot.

“Once a plane has missed its slot, then it is sent to the back of the queue,” a BAA spokesman explained.

For example, a missing passenger at London City Airport, which is a fraction of the size of Heathrow, delayed a flight to Frankfurt by 90 minutes.

Tagging passengers could also be used to improve security, making it possible to detect anyone entering an unauthorised area. Companies are working on technology which would trigger an alarm if a device did not move at all, indicating it had been dropped or lost, or if the tag was removed from the boarding card.

But the main benefit of the system is seen as a way of making airports run more smoothly. The Manchester trial was just one of a series of experiments being carried out across Europe.

“It won’t really intrude on people’s lives,” said Dr Paul Brennan, of University College London, who has been involved in another set of radio tagging trials, known as OpTag.

“It is intended to make sure that everybody gets to the flight in time. Delays are costing the industry £100 million a year.”

Cambridge University, in collaboration with University College London and Swansea University, has incorporated research into tagging passengers into a broader study of how to construct an “intelligent” airport.

“It would allow you to do many things, especially if the tagging was incorporated with biometric data,” said Prof Richard Penty, of Cambridge University’s engineering department.

However, the project has alarmed some privacy campaigners. Sophie in ‘t Veld, a Dutch Liberal MEP, has demanded reassurance about the project from EU officials.

“Has this project been properly evaluated? Does it serve a useful purpose? So many measures have been taken since September 11. In many cases they are ineffective and they have not been introduced in a democratic way.”