New technologies help reduce passenger wait times at Dubai International Airport

TINNews |

TIN news: Dubai International Airport’s (DXB) new technology has reportedly reduced passenger wait times at the airport by as much as 10% during the first three months of 2017.

During the first quarter, 84% of transfer passengers were processed within five minutes, 68% of arrival passengers were processed within 15 minutes, and 87% of departing passengers were processed within ten minutes, using the new technology.

The airport's Smart Gates have helped reduce transaction times and queues at immigration checkpoints.

In addition, a new service allowing customers to use Emirates ID cards to pass through automated immigration gates at DXB has decreased transaction times to an average of ten to 15 seconds per passenger.

More than 1.3 million United Arab Emirates (UAE) customers have taken advantage of the service since its introduction in 2016.

A newly installed motion sensor system has also reduced waiting periods by allowing the airport to track queues in real time.

The system comprises 530 sensors deployed at major passenger processing areas in Terminal 1 and Terminal 3 at DXB.

The sensors track passengers’ movement and calculate important data, such as passenger wait times and queue lengths.

The key data is then transmitted via a mobile application, which is currently being used by more than 5,000 operational staff across Dubai Airports, airlines, and control authorities at the airport.

"The operations team and other organisations that work across the airport now have a bird’s-eye view of bottlenecks, allowing them to better manage staffing levels and lanes."

This allows the staff to quickly identify and respond by deploying additional resources in the event of any delays in the processes.

DXB Operations senior vice-president Frank McCrorie said: “This automated system provides us with timelier and more accurate data more quickly than the manual system that was used previously.

“As a result, the operations team and other organisations that work across the airport now have a bird’s eye view of bottlenecks, allowing them to better manage staffing levels and lanes, and improve the overall customer experience.”

The technologies support Dubai Airports’ DXB Plus programme, which has been designed to enhance customer services and increase the airport's capacity to 118 million passengers by 2018.