As airports are experiencing a significant growth in passenger volumes, they face increasingly complex demands on infrastructure and operations. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology that collects, stores, manages, analyzes, and outputs spatial and nonspatial data, is essential for improving efficiency, ensuring safety, and maintaining customer satisfaction at airports. By integrating data from multiple sources, and by providing a comprehensive view of operations, GIS is being used to ingest and analyze real-time data feeds to support operations. GIS tools are deployed at airports to monitor and help manage facilities, maintain situational awareness, and to remotely track assets. Geographic Information Systems integrate with enterprise asset management systems, allowing facilities managers to visualize and schedule work orders and to monitor work activity, repairs, and predictive maintenance.
Manage Data With Real Time GIS
Airports maintain many staff, equipment and vehicles that move continually throughout their air and landsides. Whether it is during normal operation, in inclement weather, or when unplanned activity occurs, GIS technology improves real time situational awareness, safety, and operational efficiency. GIS enables supervisors and decision makers to track and manage mobile assets and field workers. As the information associated with these individuals, assets, and activities is collected and stored in secure, enterprise databases, the power to visualize and analyze them becomes available. These analyses include visualizing the movement of passenger baggage carts and other ground service vehicles, the locations of scissor lifts, power tools, wheelchairs, heavy equipment, accessories, and more.
Airfield Inspectors are leveraging GIS to help them conduct daily Part 139 Inspections more quickly and efficiently. Using any Android or iOS mobile device, inspectors are capturing the locations, attributes, photographs, and other details of discrepancies in real time. The GIS field application they use for reporting leverages webhooks to generate work orders as soon as the issues are observed. This reduces maintenance response times and improves safety. Webhooks automatically push selected information about discrepancies to third EAMs, automatically initiating work orders. Webhooks are configured to immediately notify maintenance supervisors via SMS and emails of these issues, informing them of the need to take prompt action. With Indoor GIS technology, airports now have interactive, detailed interior floor plans of terminals where passenger activity can be tracked and analyzed. Understanding passenger movements and clustering throughout terminals and across time, helps facility, real estate, and lease managers make data driven decisions that ultimately boost revenue and improve customer satisfaction.
Safety and Security Through Readiness State
Safety and security are top priorities for airports. GIS is helping staff and tenants be safer and compliant with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) safety, security, and environment regulations. To comply with FAA regulations, airports use GIS to improve their situational awareness. Noise monitoring tools give employees and aircraft operators better awareness of the airport environment by generating and visualizing real-time and historic data on the noise associated with flight operations. CCTV footage of activity and incidents help personnel at Airport Integrated Operations Centers (AIOCs) see, manage, and mitigate risks by understanding and learning from accidents so they can promote and encourage safer workplace behavior. Airlines also maintain AIOCs where GIS technology provides decision makers with Operations Dashboards giving them live 365/24/7 monitoring. Because location is the core of situational awareness, GIS is an essential component in maintaining safe, compliant operations. GIS technology is being used to see events and activity, and sends automated alerts of normal, unplanned, or suspicious activity, as well as inclement weather to stakeholders. By making real-time, location-based data more secure, accessible, and efficient, airports and air carriers go beyond safety and security, offering optimal customer service.
GIS and Oversight Granting Operational Efficiency
To improve customer satisfaction, airports aim to reduce latency, wait times and delays, such as the time between when a passenger deplanes and when they receive their belongings at baggage claim carousels. By using GIS network analysis, airports are leveraging sensors attached to baggage handling vehicles to track their progress. This data can help airports make better data-driven decisions about route efficiency. Keeping track of mobile assets, vehicles, and personnel reduces turn times including taxi delays, gate availability and reassignments, deboarding, cleaning and passenger boarding; thereby, improving on time performance. In the longer term, these processes positively impact efficiency and help smart airports and tenants increase productivity and reduce costs.
GIS empowers users with Web Apps that offer secure, real time and historic oversight of their assets. Through geofences, virtual boundaries that correspond to real-world geographic areas, airports can track and monitor the movement of mobile assets in and around terminals and facilities. With these apps, planners and decision makers can see when and where equipment, tools, and personnel are active or idle. This oversight can help track fuel usage, schedule the parking of planes and more; allowing airports to optimize fuel usage, cutting down on cost and emissions. GIS can help streamline and automate routine tasks, such as vehicle and equipment inspections and maintenance reporting.
Enhance Efficiency with Samsara and Esri’s ArcGIS Velocity
Optimize airport operations using real time data, GIS mapping and geofencing using the Samsara Connected Operations Cloud and Esri’s ArcGIS Velocity. With Samsara and Velocity, airports can use GIS technology to map infield areas and create geofenced zones, tracking and measuring infield equipment to improve the readiness state, safety and security of airports.
Watch our on-demand webinar to learn more about leveraging Esri’s ArcGIS Velocity, along with the Samsara Connected Operations Cloud to analyze real-time data feeds to improve airport operations.
Carahsoft Technology Corp. is The Trusted Government IT Solutions Provider, supporting Public Sector organizations across Federal, State and Local Government agencies and Education and Healthcare markets. As the Master Government Aggregator for our vendor partners, including Samsara, we deliver solutions for Geospatial, Cybersecurity, MultiCloud, DevSecOps, Artificial Intelligence, Customer Experience and Engagement, Open Source and more. Working with resellers, systems integrators and consultants, our sales and marketing teams provide industry leading IT products, services and training through hundreds of contract vehicles. Explore the Carahsoft Blog to learn more about the latest trends in Government technology markets and solutions, as well as Carahsoft’s ecosystem of partner thought-leaders.
