Baggage+Handling

Okay, having finally figured out how to post my word document onto here, I will now copy paste my **ITGS Business and Employment Project; Topic: Baggage Handling** onto this wiki. My Guiding Questions are: 1. Explain how baggage Handling systems work. (Identify the IT Systems involved) 2. Which companies offer automated baggage handling systems – which major airpots use them? 3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using automated baggage handling systems for... 4. Document with souces what happens when automated baggage handling systems fail or malfunction. Who is responsible?
 * Airports?
 * Travellers?
 * Airlines?

This is my Essay. I hope it actually answees all of the points!

A baggage handling system (BHS) is a type of conveyor system installed in airports, train terminals and other travel hubs, that transports checked luggage from ticket counters to areas where the bags can be loaded onto airplanes, trains cargo holds etc. A BHS can also transport baggage to baggage claims and transfers. Although the primary function of a BHS is the transportation of bags, a typical BHS will serve other functions involved in making sure that a bag gets to the correct location in the airport. The process of identifying a bag, and the information associated with it, to make a decision on where the bag should be directed within the system is known as sortation. In addition to sortation, a BHS may also perform the following functions: The baggage handling system at an airport plays a crucial role in keeping travelers happy. It also can make the difference in an airport's ability to attract or keep a major airline hub ("an airport that serves as a central connecting point through which many flights of a particular airline are routed" -- Webster's New World Dictionary). A baggage-handling system has three main jobs: An Automated Baggage System’s success is measured by how it keeps up with the passenger. If the bag is too fast or too slow, then there can be long wait times, or transfers the bag makes, but the passenger does not. Each airport/train station has its own requirements. For instance, the time allotted for a bag to make it from the check-in area to the gate/platform is determined by how fast a passenger can make the same trip. In some airports, it might only be a short walk to the passenger terminal, while in others, passengers might have to take a train, and in some train stations there are very long platforms, or multiple buildings to travel across. I will be using Denver International Airport as my example for a hub with automated baggage handling, because it not only has a modern BHS, designed by BAE Automated Systems, Inc. (In June, 2003 G & T Conveyor Company, Inc. acquired BAE), but the United Airlines uses Terminal B at the Denver Airport as a hub, so this terminal has a lot of automation. This system incorporates some amazing technology to move bags from the check-in counter to the departure gate in an almost completely automated way:
 * Detection of bag jams
 * Volume regulation (to ensure that input points are controlled to avoid overloading system)
 * Load balancing (to evenly distribute bag volume between conveyor sub-systems)
 * Bag counting
 * Bag tracking
 * Redirection of bags via pusher or diverter
 * Move bags from the check-in area to the departure gate
 * Move bags from one gate to another during transfers
 * Move bags from the arrival gate to the baggage-claim area
 * Destination-coded vehicles (DCVs) (which are unmanned carts propelled by linear induction motors mounted to the tracks) can load and unload bags without stopping,
 * Automatic scanners scan the labels on the luggage,
 * Conveyors equipped with junctions and sorting machines automatically route the bags to the relevant gate.
 * A baggage-handling system is kind of like a road system in a city; the conveyors are like the local roads, the DCV tracks are like the highway and the bag is like a car. Baggage-handling and road systems share these properties:
 * If a conveyor or DCV track is blocked (a traffic jam), baggage can be routed around the blockage,
 * Baggage starts and ends its journey on conveyors (local roads), moving to the DCV track (highways) to make longer journeys, such as from terminal to terminal or gate to gate.
 * The DCVs never stop, just as there are no stop lights on a highway.

Denver International Airport has… ... enabling it to handle over 1,000 bags per minute.
 * More than 19 miles (30 km) of DCV track
 * More than 5 miles (8 km) of conveyors
 * 4,000 DCVs

Unlike a road system, however, a baggage-handling system makes all of the decisions about where a bag is going. Hundreds of computers keep track of the location of every bag, every traveler's itinerary and the schedules of all the planes. Computers control the conveyor junctions and switches in the DCV tracks to make sure each bag ends up exactly where it needs to go. The process begins when the bag is checked in and disappears into the tunnel at the back of the counter. At check in, the agent pulls up an itinerary on the computer and prints out one or more tags to attach to each of the pieces of luggage. The tag has all of the flight information on it, including destination and any stopover cities, as well as a bar code that contains a ten-digit number. This number is unique to that one piece of luggage. All of the computers in the baggage-handling system can use this number to look up the itinerary. The bag's first stop (after check-in) is at an automated bar-code scanner. This station is actually an array of bar-code scanners arranged 360 degrees around the conveyor, including underneath. This device is able to scan the bar codes on about 90 percent of the bags that pass by. The rest of the bags are routed to another conveyor to be manually scanned. Once the baggage-handling system has read the 10-digit bar-code number, it knows where any bag is at all times. Conveyors take each bag to the appropriate destination. For example, it routes bags headed out of the country through X-ray machines and other security devices. The conveyors in the main terminal of the Denver airport comprise a huge network. There are hundreds of different conveyors with junctions connecting all of them. The conveyor system has to sort all of the bags from all of the different airlines and send them to DCVs that are headed to the proper terminal. Once a bag has been scanned, the baggage-handling system tracks its movement. At any time, it knows exactly where the bag is on the conveyor system. When a bag comes to a junction, a machine called a pusher either lets it pass or pushes it onto another conveyor. Through this network of conveyors and junctions, a bag can be sent to nearly any destination automatically. The last step in the main-terminal conveyor system is a conveyor that loads the bag into a passing DCV. This step is the equivalent of a highway on-ramp. The job of the destination-coded vehicle (DCV) is to move bags quickly to an off-ramp at the gate. DCVs are used at Denver airport because the distance from the main terminal to the passenger terminals is quite long, and passengers make the commute fairly quickly by train. Because the DCV can travel up to five times faster than a conveyor -- almost 20 mph (32 km/h), they are only used at airports where large distances are covered. The DCV is a metal cart with wheels on the bottom and a plastic tub on top. Its only electronic device is a passive radio-frequency circuit that broadcasts a unique number identifying that particular car. This is similar to the circuit inside anti-shoplifting devices. The DCV rides on a metal track, like a roller coaster. It is propelled by linear induction motors mounted to the track. Unlike most electric motors, a linear induction motor has no moving parts. It uses electromagnets to build two magnetic fields -- one on the track and one on the bottom of the DCV -- that are attracted to each other. The motor moves the magnetic field on the track, pulling the DCV along behind it at a high rate of speed. The main advantages of this system are its speed, efficiency, durability, precision and manageability. A metal plate that hangs down from the bottom of the DCV rides between the linear induction motors. The motors are located about every 50 feet (15 m). Each time a DCV passes through one of the motors, it receives a boost from the motor that allows it to maintain speed while it coasts to the next motor on the track. The tub on the DCV is mounted on a pivot. Most of the time, the tub is tilted backward so that the bags cannot slide out (remember that DCVs can go around turns at almost 20 mph/32 kph). A linkage on the DCV locks the tub in this position. When the DCV comes into a loading area, a bar on the track rises and engages a lever on the DCV. This lever tilts the tub into a flat position. At the moment when an empty DCV is in front of the loading conveyor, the bag leaves the end of the conveyor belt and slides into the tub. This happens without the DCV stopping, so very precise timing is needed. The conveyors have optical pickups so they know exactly where any bag is and can make sure it hits the DCV perfectly each time. Once a bag is loaded into the DCV, a rail on the track tilts the tub backward. Unloading a DCV is a similar process. A mechanism on the track engages a lever on the DCV that causes the tub to tilt downward and dump the bag onto a section of conveyor that runs alongside the track. The DCVs unload in one smooth motion as they move past the unload conveyer. After the bag has been deposited, a bar on the track raises the tub back into the tilted position. By this point, the bag is very close to the plane. There is an off-ramp at every gate in the United Airlines terminal. The bags make their way down a short conveyor to a sorting station on the ground at the gate. At the sorting station, baggage handlers load the bags onto carts or into special containers that go right into the airplane. When loading the plane, bags that will be making a transfer after the flight are loaded into separate areas, separated from bags that will be heading to baggage claim. A monitor at the sorting station tells the handlers which bags are going where (after all, the baggage-handling system always knows exactly where each bag is going). After the bags are loaded into carts or containers, they are brought the short distance to the plane and loaded. Some planes are bulk loaded, meaning the bags are brought up one-by-one on a conveyor and placed into shelves in the cargo hold. Other planes are container loaded, meaning that special containers are loaded on the ground and then placed into the plane. Since the United terminal is a hub, most of the people coming through it are making transfers. Again, the goal of the system is to have the bags keep up with the passengers. Generally, the people can get off the plane faster than the bags can be unloaded, so for the bags to keep up they need to be able to move between gates very quickly. The terminal is about .6 mile long (1 km) long, and some bags may have to travel that whole distance. The terminal has two separate DCV tracks that make loops around the terminal in opposite directions. The transferring bags are loaded onto conveyors, where they move through scanning stations and then are routed onto the DCV track. The DCV takes the bags to the proper gate and unloads them. If you're not making a transfer, the bag has to make it to the baggage-claim area. Bags coming off a plane that are staying in Denver are loaded into carts and pulled by tug to the baggage-claim area. Since the bags are already sorted when they come off the plane, it is easy to keep the transferring bags separate from the terminating bags. When the bags get to the baggage-claim area, they are loaded onto a short conveyor that deposits them onto the carousel. Since Denver airport is a popular destination for skiers, there is a whole separate carousel for skis.

Although there are very many baggage handling providers out there, there are some which are quite large. Siemens, ICM, the BCS Group, Jervis B. Webb Company, and Alstef Automation are just a few examples of companies that provide automatic baggage handling systems to terminals. New York, Toronto, Chicago, Bangkok, Sydney, Beijing and Barcelona Airport, Hethrow Terminal 5, Denver, Madrid, even Vienna International Airport all use Automated Baggage Systems with different grades of advanced technology. Nowadays only very small airports, like Alice Springs Airport, do not have some form of Automated Baggage System in place.

http://www.luchtvaartnieuws.nl (http://www.luchtvaartnieuws.nl/news/?ID=31481 http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=681 http://users.csc.calpoly.edu/~dstearns/SchlohProject/problems.html http://www.cds.caltech.edu/conferences/1997/vecs/tutorial/Examples/Cases/failures.htm http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2008/04/07/230178/Heathrow39s-Terminal-Five-hit-by-more-baggage-handling-problems.htm http://www.which.co.uk/advice/lost-luggage/baggage-handling/index.jsp http://www.passengerterminaltoday.com/opinion.php?BlogID=31

According to the sources I found, once the bag has left the check in counter, it is the responsibility of the Airport, once it has been cleared for an aircraft, it is the responsibility of the Airline, and once it has been unloaded and checked into the arrival centre, it is the responsibility of the Airport again. However, if the baggage is lost due to the passenger not arriving at the baggage claim within the specified time, the passenger is responsible. If baggage has been flown to the wrong destination, the Airport it flew out from bears the blame, unless there is a transfer flight that was delayed by the passenger for personal reasons, like the weather was nice at the stop, or they had to buy something at duty-free and missed the plain.

As you can see, I got rather bored of writing by the end, so my answer to the first question is the longest. I hope that reading all of this has not put you to sleep.

Enjoy! ;)

Sophie