Anonymously tracking phones through airport security cuts waiting time by a third
Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport says that anonymously tracking smartphones and tablets through airport security has enabled it to cut the average waiting time by a third.
The system, developed by Danish company Blip Systems, scans both WiFi and Bluetooth connections to look for MAC addresses of mobile devices passing through security. Counting the number of devices in each queue enables the system to estimate the length of the queue. The queue length is displayed to passengers in minutes, so they can choose which queue to join, and also used to help the airport allocate the right number of security personnel.
Blip says that it anonymizes this data, and only uses device counts. The same system is used in a number of other airports around the world, but this is the first time it’s been used in the USA.
Via The Verge
