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Rediscovering the world’s most visited city
Securing passenger safety and service excellence is Hong Kong International Airport’s (HKIA) top priority, and this is an important part of why they were recognized as the Best Airport and Airport of the Year by the International Airport Review in 2018,¹ and one of the top 10 in airport security globally by SKYTRAX in 2019 to 2020.²
For eight consecutive years, Hong Kong has been named the world’s most visited city,³ attracting over 29 million visitors in 2018. With connections to more than 220 destinations worldwide, HKIA handled over 74.7 million passengers in 2018 alone.
As part of its devotion to passenger safety and experience in May 2019, the airport partnered with Smiths Detection to trial the HI-SCAN 6040 CTiX and iLane.evo in terminal 2. Over four weeks, HKIA tested Smiths Detection’s integrated checkpoint solutions with three objectives:
Enhancing security and efficiency at HKIA
In order to objectively assess the efficiency of the new solutions, several parameters were determined for data collection. These included passenger transaction time, security officer efficiency, image analysis rate, and the time taken to complete secondary rechecks, if any.
The HI-SCAN 6040 CTiX cabin baggage screening system, which is compliant with the latest ECAC EDS CB C3 and TSA AT-2 standards, enabled faster detection of prohibited items even without passengers removing their liquids and electronics. Simultaneously, the iLane.evo tray handling system helped with removing bottlenecks by delivering a steady flow of trays to facilitate a more seamless screening process and improve passenger experience.
Automatic tray handling systems deliver a steady flow of trays, streamlining the screening process, increasing throughput, optimizing operational costs, and improving passenger experience.
The results of the trial were very positive. The combined solutions demonstrated the potential to significantly increase passenger throughput by 50 percent compared to conventional screening setup. The C3 CONOP trial also saw a reduction in the number of trays used by passenger—due to not having to take items out of their bags—and an overall lowered false alarm rate. From the trial, HKIA discovered that the 3D image evaluation time was shorter than expected, and the image analysts were able to learn the right screening techniques in a very short period of time, giving them the confidence to evaluate the 3D images accurately and efficiently.
HKIA also trialed iCMORE Weapons, our latest digital offering to automatically detect weapons such as handguns, ammunition, and knives hidden in cabin baggage during a simulated scenario. Ceramic knives and pocketknives were also successfully detected in cabin bags when passing through the x-ray scanner. The automatic detection capability of iCMORE reduces the pressure on analysts, making identification of threats easier, and enabling them to focus on more important tasks—such as increasing efficiency and enhancing detection accuracy.
John Tan, Managing Director, Smiths Detection APAC, said of the trial, “As HKIA continues its journey in fulfilling the industry’s highest standards, we are confident that our solutions will fortify security and boost passenger experience and wellbeing. We look forward to continuing this chapter with HKIA and meeting their needs as air travel revives.”
Smiths Detection has also worked with over 20 major airports across USA, United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands, Australia, Japan, India, South Korea and United Arab Emirates, to successfully conduct integrated checkpoint trials.
Automatic weapons detection program, iCMORE, uses object recognition algorithms to identify a growing list of dangerous, prohibited, and contraband goods, boosting security operators’ capabilities and increasing efficiency.
References
1.https://internationalairportreview.attach.io/HJwRJILgV
2.https://www.worldairportawards.com/worlds-best-airport-security-2020/
3.https://go.euromonitor.com/white-paper-travel-2018-100-cities
