EU Research Saving You Time At Busy Airports!

As airports are getting busier and busier, passenger queues are getting longer and longer. Meanwhile European researchers are on the hunt for innovative solutions to make air travel faster and more comfortable. One solution they have come up with is “PASSME”, a new Horizon 2020 EU funded research project, which aims to reduce air passenger waiting times by 1 hour.

The PASSME project wants to cut 60 minutes off the time passengers spend getting from the departure hall in one airport to the arrivals area at their destination. It will do this by transforming airports in ways that make passenger journeys more seamless and give them better information.

One of the new technologies being developed is a smartphone app which will provide passengers with real-time information about their airport experience. Others innovations include:

• Faster luggage drop off and collection (30 minutes)
• Reduced queues at key touch points (10 minutes)
• Smart boarding systems
• Reduced buffers due to increased predictability (10 minutes)
• Improved quality of experience for at least 70% of passengers throughout the door to door experience.

The project (Personalised Airport Systems for Seamless Mobility and Experience – “PASSME”) which is EU funded to the tune of €4.6 million will run for 3 years and brings together 12 European partners with experts in the fields of aviation, transport, academia, design and communications. The innovative technologies will be piloted in Hamburg Airport, Germany and Schiphol Airport, the Netherlands.

Carr Communications based in Dublin are one of the partners in this project. Click here [389 KB] to download a clip of Orlaith McCarthy, the Dissemination and Exploitation Manager explaining more about the project.

The Coordinator of the project, Prof Sicco C. Santema from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands says “I am honored to have this unique opportunity to coordinate such a challenging project with a group of leading experts from around Europe. This project is primarily passenger and consumer centric, focused on improving the passenger experience. We hope to achieve results that will improve the passenger journey for all EU citizens by cutting out unwanted travel time in airports.”