18 Jul 2003 10:05
Singapore's Changi Airport, Amsterdam's Schiphol, and New York's John F. Kennedy International will later this year take part in an experiment testing radio-tagged luggage.
The test is part of plans by a newly-formed consortium of Japanese firms to promote RFID (radio frequency ID) tags on passenger luggage, according to a report in Nikkei Electronics News.
Radio-tagging of luggage would not only revolutionise the sorting and routing of luggage; if it was fully integrated into existing disparate systems, it would also mean bags could be picked up from travellers' homes by couriers, then automatically processed and loaded into aircraft, said the report.
This "hands-free" delivery of luggage will be tested this year by the new Advanced Airport Systems Technology Research Consortium (ASTREC). It comprises 58 Japanese transport-related and electronics firms such Narita Airport Authority (NAA), Japan Airlines (JAL), and All Nippon Airways (ANA), Omron Corp, Dai Nippon Printing, Fujitsu, and Matsushita Electric.
Testing will start later this year and carry on for the next five years, said the report. In the short term, the airlines ANA and JAL will this year test the system in Narita Airport in Japan, Singapore, New York and Amsterdam.
Narita Airport Authority is aiming for commercial launch of the system in two to three years, taking advantage of the upgrading works being carried out right now, according to Nikkei News.
Japanese firms are in the forefront of RFID technology. Hitachi, for example, is rumoured to be developing a speck-sized radio chip to be embedded into Euro notes as a security measure. At a recent Japan trade show, a demonstration of RFID technology allows retailers to track the movements of a consumer in a book store.
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