[LINK] Sydney airport considering RFID

[Geoffrey Ramadan]

Howard

There has been a lot of interest globally in RFID for luggage tracking.

Some recent reports indicate:
http://www.idtechex.com/products/en/view.asp?productcategoryid=92

"Paybacks from RFID in the air industry are typically in the 
satisfactory 1-2 years range but some paybacks of only months have been 
reported"

You can also find an application brief from Symbol Technologies who 
provided the RFID system for Hong Kong Airport (currently the largest 
deployment of RFID for luggage tracking)
http://www.symbol.com/category.php?filename=ab-41_airport_ib_final.xml
Of particular interest are the cost impact figures.

This is an good example of the use of RFID.

Reg
Geoffrey Ramadan B.E.(Elec)
Chairman, Automatic Data Capture Association (www.adca.com.au)
and
Managing Director, Unique Micro Design (www.umd.com.au)


Howard Lowndes wrote:
> http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/lost-in-transit-no-more/2006/11/30/1164777706811.html 
>
>
> Sydney Airport is investigating high-tech tagging methods for baggage 
> handling, which could greatly reduce the number of bags that go 
> missing each year.
>
> Industry experts say that baggage mishandling costs the industry 
> globally $US1.7 ($2.17) billion each year, and that much of this cost 
> is due to failures in the barcode-based tagging system that's 
> currently in use at most airports worldwide.
>
> A spokesman for Sydney Airport said it had sent staff to look at 
> overseas airports already using the electronic tagging technology - 
> dubbed "radio frequency identification" (RFID) - and that it would be 
> commencing its own trials shortly.
>
> "Sydney Airport is actively looking at RFID," said the spokesman.
> [...]
>