Brussels Airport Eases Travelers' Minds with Accurate Wait Times

AALBORG, Denmark - Oct. 14, 2016 - PRLog -- Brussels Airport, one of the busiest airports in Europe with more than 23 million travelers per year, has joined an ever growing club of international airports around the world that uses sensor technology to improve the traveler experience and optimize operations.


The solution measures wait times and flow within the airport. The data enables the airport to provide a positive traveler experience by displaying waiting times on screens throughout the airport and on their mobile app.

"Today, many airports display wait times. Typically, this is done by measuring the wait time of people leaving the queue. However, these wait times may not be accurate for those entering the queue, especially if the flow of people suddenly changes," explains Christian Bugislaus Carstens, Marketing Manager at BLIP Systems. "BlipTrack works by measuring the number of people in line and the average throughput of the area. With these two measurements, accurate wait time, for those entering the line, can be displayed. For example, if there are 100 passengers in line and the processing rate of the area is 15 people per minute, the predicted wait time is 6,5 minutes."

The BlipTrack sensors detect Wi-Fi devices, such as mobile phones and tablets. By re-identifying devices from multiple sensors, the wait times and movement patterns become available.


The wait times allow travelers to reduce frustration by creating realistic wait time expectations, which will increase the opportunity for a positive experience, with more satisfied and recurring travelers as a result. According to a 2014 study, passengers are willing to spend up to EUR 1,00 per minute in airport concession, once he/she passes the security process. The same study shows that an extra 10 minutes spent in a security queue reduces a passenger´s spending on retail by 30 percent on average. Consequently, managing queues and flow becomes an important tool to generate more non-airline revenue for the airport.

Operationally, Brussels Airport uses the data to monitor security line congestion, which allows management to respond promptly and effectively to irregular operations and disruptions to ultimately reduce processing times.

"BlipTrack enables Brussels Airport to monitor the quality of the terminal processes and to improve the resource planning. The collected wait time data and throughput is also used to perform consistent reporting to internal and external stakeholders," says Thomas Sterken, Project Manager of Operations at Brussels Airport.

Also JFK Airport, Amsterdam Schiphol, Barcelona El-Prat, Copenhagen, Dublin, Edinburgh, Cincinnati (http://blipsystems.com/cincinnati-airport-cuts-one-third-of-security-queue-time/), Keflavik (http://blipsystems.com/your-mobile-phone-helps-keflavik-airport-give-you-a-better-travel-experience/) and Oslo are displaying real-time wait times, based on data collected by the BlipTrack Queue Management solution.