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Airport Queuing Time Measured With Bluetooth 38

Posted by samzenpus from the next-line-please dept.
jones_supa writes "Helsinki-Vantaa airport has established a new method of monitoring security control queue times, utilizing phones with Bluetooth enabled. When a passenger passes through security control, the system calculates the time taken to queue and be served based on time stamps registered by the sensors. The plan is to eventually display all queuing times, which will allow busy passengers to decide whether it would be better to move to another checkpoint."
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Airport Queuing Time Measured With Bluetooth More

Airport Queuing Time Measured With Bluetooth

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  • that if you have bluetooth on, they can track you anywhere.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

      that if you have a cellphone on, they can track you anywhere.

      • With cameras everywhere in airports, they can track you anyway. It should be possible to estimate waiting times based on security camera footage. Seems like a good phd topic, judging queue throughput automatically from camera footage, also for cars. Seemingly harmless topic, job guaranteed in the surveillance industry afterwards.
    • and your battery life will half.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by yoblin ( 692322 )
      Well they can also track you if you have a face. Which most of us do.

      • That's why I always wear a ski mask when I go out in public. In particular, I find the cameras in banks and airports overly invasive, and I'll wear a stocking underneath the ski mask, just to make sure I can't be identified.

        • I saw a sign on a shop in Santa Fe, NM: "please remove ski mask and unload gun before entering shop". or something very close to that.

  • While a cool idea, it's merely an extension of manual queue tracking. Give someone a time-stamped card. Record what time they get through the checkpoint, update your ticker system.

    This is a great idea, assuming that your airport has multiple security checkpoints to choose from. Every airport I've flown through has one checkpoint per terminal (and no way to switch terminals without re-going through security checkpoints), or a massive single checkpoint for all terminals.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by blair1q ( 305137 )

      I'm not sure of the savings.

      I can spend an hour in this checkpoint, or I can drag my shit half an hour to the next one and spend half an hour there, then drag my shit half an hour back here because this is where my gate is...

      Moot point. Fuck flying.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by eh2o ( 471262 )

      I went through YUL (Montreal) a couple weeks ago and they had security drones with wireless barcode scanners checking boarding passes at every identifiable stage of the queue. By the time I got through security my boarding pass had been scanned no less than 12 times, which was a rather annoying experience. One of the drones said this was being done to measure time between different parts of the process.

      So thats manual queue tracking on crack or something, but point being people are already conveying uniqu

    • I went through Las Vegas airport last week and they did exactly that. Gave me a card before I joined the security line and took it back from me when I got through. Seems like a simple solution.

    • While a cool idea, it's merely an extension of manual queue tracking. Give someone a time-stamped card. Record what time they get through the checkpoint, update your ticker system.

      This is a great idea, assuming that your airport has multiple security checkpoints to choose from. Every airport I've flown through has one checkpoint per terminal (and no way to switch terminals without re-going through security checkpoints), or a massive single checkpoint for all terminals.

      You must fly through pretty craptacular airports. Which ones do this to you?

      • Every airport that I've been through security checks, for example:

        US: LAX, JFK, Denver, Dulles (D.C.), San Diego, San Jose, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Long Beach
        International: Heathrow, Hong Kong

        I'd say that's a pretty good mix of both large international and smaller domestic airports built over a pretty wide range of time periods too.

        • You go through security once at Denver, and then get to all terminals (unless it's changed recently).

          JFK? Yeah, well - there's a craptastic airport for you (as is DCA).

  • Until someone opens up a cellphone store just outside the security line... all those phones in the store sitting with bluetooth on and never quite making it past security, the average queue time will skyrocket.

    Or until Security Theater (also known as Theater Securite' Abominable, or TSA) realizes that anyone with a cell phone turned on in the line can take surreptitious photos and videos of the screening process and therefore all cellphones must be turned off while in the security line... just as they must

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      There is only one country ignorant (stupid?) enough to saddle itself with TSA. That country isn't Finland.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PRMan ( 959735 )
      The last time I flew threw customs nobody mentioned anything about turning off my cellphone. Granted, I was coming back from Canada, but nobody mentioned it.
  • It's not the only application for measuring times in a queue, or other travel-related information. Transportation engineers have started using bluetooth MAC addresses for transit travel times, passenger car travel times, time-in-queue at toll booths, et c. Here's [google.com] a google search on the subject, if you're curious.

  • The security staff at HEL are the most over zealous I have ever encountered (mind you, I've never been the USA). This is the only place that I've had to remove my handkerchief and some paper serviettes from my pockets during a pat-down and then have the snot-rag and paper x-rayed.

    The security screeners seemed keen to touch-up anyone that set off the metal detector, and the queues were quite long with the backlog

    • Like you said, you've never been to the U.S. They'll rifle through you're wallet with nary a second thought. Hankies are the least of your worries.

      • Re:HEL could improve most of their security (Score:4, Insightful)

        by speculatrix ( 678524 ) on Thursday July 21, 2011 @05:20AM (#36832850)
        I used to travel to the USA four times a year for ten days or more per trip. I've reduced that to once or twice; cost to the US economy at least $2500 per trip (internal flights, hotels, car rental, restaurants, entertainment), because I hate being treated as a criminal. I am almost certainly not the only one, overall cost to the US economy must be in the many millions.
  • If we got rid of the security checkpoints the queue times would be 0... problem solved.

  • which will allow busy passengers to decide whether it would be better to move to another checkpoint."

    what is this about allowing people to choose which line they're going to stand around to go through. Most airports, certainly most larger airports, you're waved into a channel and that's the one you're going through. Switching lanes is most explicitly not allowed. Full stop, end of ergument, or the police officers with the sub-machine guns are going to be talking to the back of your head while you kiss concr

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