Denver Airport Automated Baggage System Abandoned

cherylchase writes "Denver International Airport opened in 1995 with an ambitious fully automated baggage system: 26 miles of underground track, thousands of small gray carts, all controlled by a mainframe programmed for just in time delivery. But the system never worked well; bugs delayed the airport's opening for months (at $1M/day). The system has now been abandoned as a cost cutting measure." From the article: "Technology, too, has brought change. Back then, the big-brained mainframe doing it all from command central was the model of high tech. Today the very idea of it sounds like a cold-war-era relic, engineers say. Decentralization and mobile computing technology have taken over just about everything, allowing airlines, warehouse operators and shippers like FedEx to learn with just a few clicks the whereabouts of an item in motion, a feature that was supposed to be a chief strength of the baggage system."

Comments

This Isn't the First Time

[dh0dges]

This "system" is a solution that has been hunting a problem since the late '60's. A start-up just knew that linear accelerators had to be the answer to some transportation problem, and the ivory-tower consultancies like Batelle just loved it. After haunting airport technical committees for 10 years, Eastern finally bought it for the then-in-design Atlanta terminal. At start-up in 1980, it lasted about 48 hours, than took six weeks to tear out and replace with a conventional system. Then along came Denver, and as someone said here, they were so isolated and over-consulted that they bought it in the face of Eastern's experience. The machine is far too complex and close-tolaranced for a semiskilled yet time-crucial environment like baggage handling. Eastern blew $20 Million, Denver/United $600 Million, who will step up and try for blowing a $Billion?