Airports are one of the crowded places where a lot of travelers or passengers pass every hour. Many passengers wait in the waiting hall; few check in, few check out, staff members do their operations, places are landed with more people, cargo planes stop with products, etc. In 2024, international passenger traffic is expected to be 4.1 billion, which would be 43% of the total. Domestic passenger traffic is expected to be 5.4 billion, which would be 57% of the total. These are great numbers that show how many passengers pass through the airports daily.
So our topic is about the emergency response in airports that sometimes can be risky for many lives and assets. There can be various situations of emergency at airports, like aircraft emergencies, fire emergencies, and power failures; dangerous goods occurrences; aircraft hijacking; and terrorism attacks, as there are many past incidents of terrorist attacks on airports; runway foaming; and controlling public transportation at airports, etc.
In all these emergency conditions, it is very important to make an immediate response to avoid too much loss of lives or assets. There are many systems implemented at airports as technology has advanced to tackle these types of accidents. RFID technology is one of the most capable technologies among all that is offering many immediate accident response solutions for airports.
Overview: Technology Solutions for Airports
RFID-powered solutions like tags can attach to persons, assets, etc., to track them in emergencies. In vast accidents, RFID-powered real-time tracking allows one to know the exact location of a person to take them out of the accidental area; it can offer safe routes or outings with smart solutions, asset tracking helps to quickly make available emergency control assets like fire extinguishers, etc., improved communication with high-frequency channels in emergency time, data availability for post-accident reviews to avoid future accidents, etc.
Airport RFID System Market ScenarioAirport RFID System Market Size is expected to reach USD 10.78 billion by 2032, registering a CAGR of 10.1% during 2024-2032. Where individually, the global RFID market size is projected to be around USD 15.86 billion in 2024. This is expected to grow to USD 48.51 billion by 2034, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.83%.
We have seen the introduction part of the article that shows the initial information and some solid stats to prove statements. Now we are going forward to focus on some additional details like benefits and challenges. In the end, we will end the article with a summary paragraph.
Also Read: Affordable RFID Solutions to Track and Manage Your Assets
The Role of RFID Solutions for Airports
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a technology that uses radio waves to passively identify a tagged object. RFID, or radio frequency identification, is arguably the best technology to provide solutions to respond in emergencies that can also be implemented in airports. With the RFID power solutions, emergencies like short circuits, fire catching, any malfunction in an airplane while landing or taking off, availability of emergency control equipment, trapped people tracking, etc., aspects are easily enhanced to avoid too much damage. Overall, this technology can have various benefits that we will see later in brief.
Benefits of RFID in Enhancing Emergency Response in Airports
This is the time for knowing some benefits of RFID in enhancing emergency response in airports. Here are a few mentioned below.
1. Passengers tracking while emergency
There can be situations of not finding passengers during an emergency situation at airports. The rescue team cannot find the passengers that are trapped in the accident area, and without any tracking tool, this can be a time-wasting process to find trapped people. With the RFID-powered tracking solutions like RFID or wristband, it is possible to know the exact location of trapped passengers and save their lives before it’s too late.
2. Safe routing
Conditions like firing, short circuits, fall of any part of airport infrastructure, etc., that can block the main gate or route. So this can result in trapping passengers inside the airports. But with RFID solutions, it is possible to find a safe and dynamic route to make it out from the airport campus. This too could be very crucial in saving lives.
Also Read: Implementation of RFID in Baggage Operations at Airports
3. Crowd management
In an emergency situation, people often get panicked and gather as a crowd, which can result in bottlenecks, congestion, etc. A stampede of passengers could result in the crushing of people which causes injuries. With the RFID-powered crowd density monitoring solutions, it is possible to track the areas where crowd density is high and take necessary action to prevent bottlenecks and ensure smooth evacuations of passengers.
4. Real-time emergency equipment location
There is much equipment for emergencies that is available at the airports, but finding that equipment at the right time is very important. In panic conditions, this is not an easy task to know the exact location of equipment. With RFID-powered tracking, equipment location can be known enables the use of equipment like fire extinguishers, defibrillators, first aid kits, rescue tools, etc., as soon as possible.
5. Automating alerting system
To prevent accidents, it is very important to know about the accidents or faults in the initial stage. Without any specific alarm system, it is not possible to know the accident information on time. Where the integration of RFID and AI can implement an automated alerting system that can make an alert before it’s too late. This really helps to save time, assets, and lives of people before slipping out of situations.
Also Read: Uses of RFID System in Airport Baggage Handling
Challenges of RFID solutions for Airports
It’s time to see some challenging parts of RFID while implementing it to enhance response in airports. Here are a few challenges mentioned below.
- Tag failures in extreme conditions like fire, smoke, water, etc., can result in not getting accurate information in emergency situations.
- The battery life of active tags can be a challenging issue too, as the battery may not last long; that could be a challenge in vast emergency situations.
- RFID works on a centralized system, so if any point makes a fault, then the whole network disrupts, which results in the crashing of the whole system.
Also Read: How Airlines Track Bags and Avoid Losing Baggage with RFID
Final Words
RFID technology is a great solution for airports in emergency situations that have the potential to manage and control the situations with ease. There are many benefits that we have seen earlier, like tracking of trapped passengers, equipment tracking, dynamic routing, automating alarm systems, crowd density monitoring, etc., that are surely going to contribute to enhancing the emergency response.
While there are a few challenges too, like interoperability, centralization, tag durability, battery life, cost, etc., the benefits are too good to overcome the challenges. Overall, every airport or aviation organization should implement RFID-powered solutions to save a lot of lives and assets and enhance emergency response.
