Delta Airline's recent RFID luggage tagging test notched
up a staggeringly accurate tracking rate. However, the airline has
admitted that the high cost of a systemwide roll-out will mean a
gradual implementation.
Delta Airlines said accuracy levels in the test ranged from
96.7% to 99.9% during a test in which it used radio frequency
identification tags to track 40,000 pieces of luggage from check-in
to loading on planes.
The success rate of the RFID technology was far better than the
80% to 85% accuracy rate typically provided by bar code scanners,
according to officials at Delta and the IT companies that took part
in the test.
Pat Rary, manager of baggage strategy at Atlanta-based Delta,
said the trial run at the airport in Jacksonville, Florida, was
invisible to the airline's check-in agents and required no new
training.
Delta spokesman Reid Davis warned that the airline and others in
the cash-strapped industry would need to proceed slowly with any
systemwide rollouts of RFID tags. Delta operates at 81 major
airports worldwide, and Davis said equipping all of them with RFID
bag-sorting systems would require "a significant capital
expenditure".
Nonetheless, Delta plans to continue exploring the technology.
Rary said it has received tentative approval from the
US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to run another test
this month using RFID tags made by Californian company Alien
Technology. The first test, done in conjunction with the TSA from
23 October to 15 November, involved tags supplied by Matrics
and SCS.
Rary said the second test will give Delta a chance to try
different methods of deploying tags, including the use of better
printers to write bag-routing data onto RFID chips embedded in
standard bar code labels. The airline's goal is to develop a
bag-tracking system with a "zero mishandling rate", he added.
High success rates
Phil Heacock, director of advanced sortation technology at FKI
Logistex Group, said that with one exception, the RFID bag-tracking
system in Jacksonville provided read rates well above 99%. Scanners
on the bag belts inside the terminal averaged 99.8%, and the ones
on aircraft belt loaders had a success rate of 99.9%, Heacock said.
FKI Logistex Group served as systems integrator for the test.
RFID scanners mounted on universal load devices, which
automatically load containers of bags on to planes, averaged 96.7%
accuracy. Heacock said the containers are made of metal, which
impedes radio signals, and that coating their interiors with a
material that will better reflect radio waves could help improve
accuracy.
Heacock said that Delta modified a standard bag-tag printer to
capture data normally used to print bar codes. The information was
then written on to RFID devices inserted into standard luggage
tags. RFID readers tracked the progress of items through the
airport's bag-handling system, including the explosives-detection
machines that are operated by the TSA.
The aircraft loaders were also equipped with RFID readers and
were hard-wired to ruggedised computers, which used 802.11b
wireless Lans to transmit data to Delta's back-end baggage
systems.
Getting the funding needed to install RFID bag-tracking systems
will be the latest challenge, said Gene Alvarez, an analyst at Meta
Group, although he added that he expected the technology to become
a standard throughout the airline industry.
Bob Brewin writes for Computerworld