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RFID Luggage Tracking at Jacksonville Airport
securitas writes "AP reports that the Jacksonville Airport permanent RFID luggage tracking system will be installed this fall in time for the Super Bowl. The article concludes explaining that when San Francisco and Seattle ended their RFID pilot programs, they 'switched back to bar-code systems, saying the radio systems were unnecessary.' Mirror at Globetechnology, with more at Computerworld ,a large article at Jacksonville Business Journal, as well as some history from RFID Journal and Computerweekly." Moving to an untested system... paying for it by firing the baggage handlers who could help you recover from problems if the system proves to have bugs... what could go wrong?
I don't see how this will help you find lost luggage unless you & the luggage simply get seperated in the airport. Usually when you notice that your luggage is lost, you're already at your destination airport and the luggage either a)didn't leave the origin airport or b)left, but on another flight.
Lost bags often sit in the airlines office for weeks..months sometimes. I worked for a ground handling company and would occasionally try to reunite lost baggage with the owners, but even after contacting the owners, they never claimed it. Probably because the airline already paid out their lost-baggage claim settlement.
Point is, 2 of the largest airports on the west coast said "This isn't really useful" and dropped the plans. Maybe the others shouldn't even bother with RFID.
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I'm a baggage handler at an International airport.
Here are the top reasons bags go lost:
1. Missed connection. Bags travel slower than you do. A 10 minute delay into the airport is enough to cause several bags to miss your flight.
2. Automatic Baggage System breakdown. This happens a LOT on all major airports. All bags are then routed to a central area for manual sorting and distribution. This adds to the time, and makes a lot of bags miss flights.
3. Automatic Baggage System sorting error (and subsequent failure of bagagge handler to notice the error). Bags loaded on wrong aircraft / destination. (This often happens if bags are missing from A to B)
4. Loss of baggage tag. Bags go to a tracking office, or arrival service for entering into the global baggage tracking system.
What happens when your bag is "lost":
1. You arrive at the airport, notice your bag is missing (or you're summoned over PA). Head over to arrival-service for the airline in question (the last airline you traveled on), state your details, show the tag receipt for the bag missing.
2. Details about your bag (tag number, colour/type, your address, phone, misc. delivery information, contents (rarely)) will be entered into the global baggage tracking system called World Tracer.
3.
- In case of missed transfer, baggage handlers *should* (depending on how much time they got) enter a "forwarding message" in World Tracer, in which arrival-service already knows when your bag will arrive.
- In case of wrong airport, the arrival service handlers for your airline will send a "forwarding message" to the destination for the tag. This may take a while, say, if your bag goes on a trip overseas.
This info is "matched" inside World Tracer (most prevalently: the tag number, but also all other info like colour/type, name, address, etc.).
IF YOUR BAG IS MISSING A TAG, AND NO NAME/ADDRESS INFORMATION ON THE BAG:
Arrival-service will enter details about your bag into World Tracer, as an "onhand file". This includes colour/type and contents list. If bag is locked, it'll take a few days until someone will bother to crack it open, in case colour/type/extra info will match to your "missing file".
Tagless bags take the longest time to re-unite with the owner. ALWAYS WRITE NAME AND ADDRESS ON YOUR BAG!
Last, when your bag arrives the airport in question, it's stored on one of the daily "lost baggage distribution" hours, and someone will call you for delivery information. Or, in case of many low-cost carriers, they'll call you, or wait for your call, to inform you to pick it up at the airport, at your own expense.
- Over 90% of "lost baggage" is really delayed baggage, and will be found within 24 hours.
- Pilferage is almost non-existing. There are bad apples everywhere, but most baggage handlers are honest people.
So, don't worry. The "forever lost bag" is an urban myth. Just label your bags, and you'll be just fine.
For once, here's a system that I think RFID is really meant for.
The problem with barcodes is that they have to be scanned. They're passive, and it takes time to stop, grab a scanner, and hit the barcode.
The biggest cause of misrouted bags is time crunches -- somebody rushing to get the bag onto a flight, not stopping to find a scanner to scan in, misreading the three letter code, and throwing it onto the wrong belt, cart, or into the wrong plane.
Ideally, you'd have RFID boxes on the belts, the carts -- and in the cargo doors (for narrowbodies) and the LD-3 loading station (for widebodies.) that's programmed to know what flight(s) are invovled, and sets off an alarm when a tag doesn't match. So, if they're rushing, and they read "LAS" (McCarran International Airport, Las Vegas), the beeper on the cargo door goes off, they look again, and see that, no, it is really "LAX" (Los Angeles International), and *not* put the bag on the Las Vegas flight.
Even if the LAX flight has already left, this is a better answer. It is far easier to fix the "Bag Didn't Make The Flight" error (you put the bag on the next flight) than it is to fix the "Bag Went On The Wrong Fight" error, since there may not be a direct flight from the bag's current destination and the bag's correct destination.
This particular error is quite common -- esp. when someone has been working one of the two flights, and gets a bag for the other. They see "L" and "A" and, having seen "S" for the last hour, don't bother to parse the "X" at the end.
As to privacy concerns? As long as the tag is on the bag for one trip only, it is no worse than barcode. Indeed, your nametag often gives away *more* privacy information than your trip tag -- and it is always there. (Get one of those tags you have to open up, and if you are employed, put your work address on the bag.)
Another issue -- a bag is loaded onto a plane, but the passenger isn't onboard. Nowadays, this means that they have to pull the bag. Right now, this means wading through a loaded bay or container to find it. With a handled RFID box, you can at least get close to the bag quickly.
This is an application where a well build RFID system could make a very real improvment in luggage handling -- for both the passengers and airlines.
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