As travel resumes, traditional security solutions are no longer adequate to meet the changing requirements and demands.
Airports have seen a massive increase in travelers in recent months as countries worldwide relaxed travel norms, and the fear of COVID-19 eased. According to The International Air Transport Association (IATA), total traffic in August 2022 (measured in revenue passenger kilometers) was up 67.7 percent compared to August 2021.
Domestic traffic for August 2022 was up 26.5 percent year on year. International traffic rose 115.6 percent versus August 2021, with airlines in Asia delivering the strongest year-over-year growth rates.
But as travel resumes, traditional security solutions are no longer adequate to meet the changing requirements and demands. This is where video analytic solutions become important. This article explores some of the critical areas in airports that can benefit from video analytics.
Crowd control
As air traffic increases, the most apparent concern is crowd management. This begins at the entrance and goes all the way to the flight boarding points. Airport management should always remain aware of the areas where crowds gather and ensure steps to allow easy movement of people.
Similar efforts are required to manage queues or lines of people. This could be in front of check-in counters, security checks, immigration counters, or boarding points. Video analytics can detect queue lengths and optimize them.
Parking management
Airports often have vast parking lots, and managing them manually would require several employees. With analytics, you can instantly know where vacant spaces are available and direct incoming vehicles to those spots. Technology can also help recognize careless parking and violations like illegally occupying a disabled parking space.
Features like ANPR are also helpful in managing vehicles at these parking lots. ANPR can recognize or track specific vehicles and run them past lists from security agencies. The technology can also come in handy if integrated with payments for cashless transactions.
Intrusion detection
This is a fundamental aspect of protecting any site. In airports, detecting intruders is more critical than many other things because of the high risk of terror threats. Traditionally, guards have had to personally patrol every nook and corner of the airport to ensure protection from intruders.
But now, video analytics can alert authorities whenever an intrusion is detected. In a whitepaper, Axis Communications pointed out that a combination of video surveillance cameras and motion detection software solutions has expanded perimeter protection capabilities to range from simple detection to complex intrusion analysis.
“One example is thermal (or infrared) cameras, which, coupled with video analysis software, can protect an area at any time of the day, irrespective of the lighting conditions,” the paper read. “This is perfect for aerodromes as they do not interfere with the Air Traffic Management’s equipment, but they also respect the installation constraints: installation on existing fences, buildings, or even within the airside zone.”
Unattended objects
Unattended luggage often poses a threat as it could be part of a terror attack. People may also leave their bags, purses, and other items of value by mistake. In both scenarios, it is essential for security officers to have the ability to track such things.
Video analytics can help in this, detecting left items and alerting authorities of their location immediately. Security personnel can decide the best course of action depending on the analytical data they receive.
Safer runways
The use of analytics is not limited to the landside of airports. Ensuring runways remain safe is an important job for surveillance systems. Any obstruction or unwanted object in runways can result in devastating results.
But manual monitoring of such large spaces is challenging. AI-enabled analytic solutions can instantly detect anomalies or any unwanted objects and alert authorities.
“Safer runways operations are a must for better flights,” explains the analytics firm CronJ in a post. “For that, runways must be kept hazard-free. But manual monitoring with traditional video management systems can lead to unfruitful results. But video analytics software can do that! As said before, a single camera can inspect long runways. These cameras use the optical inspection to detect objects. Moreover, ML algorithms determine whether these objects pose as dangers. If any creature or a dangerous item gets detected on the runway, then the authorities receive an alert instantly.”
Video analytics inevitable for the future
Video analytics solutions are an excellent option to turn security systems from reactive to proactive. They allow customers to derive more value from their investments through better protection and actionable insights.
The best thing is that algorithms are becoming better and better, offering more accuracy and features at a faster pace. Using AI and ML, software solutions can become more intuitive and ensure better protection. In short, video analytics will be an inevitable part of airports in the future.