Boring Is Beautiful: Schiphol Airport Relays Arriving Baggage Status For Passengers Waiting At Carousels

March 19, 2024 by Dave Haynes

I was chatting the other day with an industry veteran who shares my possibly strange affection for what I call boring digital signage – data and sensors-driven information that is pretty much the polar opposite of on-screen eye candy. It’s just content that informs and guides.

Here’s a really good example of that … screens at the baggage carousels of Schiphol airport in Amsterdam that now use machine learning to tell arriving air passengers when their bags should start coming off a conveyor belt.

Schiphol Group Aviation Solutions is part of the company that owns and operates the sprawling airport, and it posted on Linkedin on its new passenger-focused feature:

Excited to share a significant update to Schiphol’s baggage reclaim screens, with contributions from Deep Turnaround. Passengers can now see exactly what the status of their baggage is on the reclaim screens.
 
Passenger research highlighted a crucial need: Knowing when baggage will arrive on the belt.

The solution? A sophisticated machine learning model that takes everything into account, from a plane’s taxiing distance to its turnaround status based on Deep Turnaround, to provide accurate baggage arrival times for each flight.

This innovation is a step forward in making travel smoother and showcases the dedication of leveraging technology for a better passenger experience.

This is a great example of the other aspect of experience in a big footprint venue like an airport. All the buzz is about the giant video walls and experiential, art-driven digital elements added to new and upgraded airport terminals. But simple, visually-bland on-screen content that informs and guides people in big, often chaotic places like an airport are also about experience.

Yes, people liked to be entertained and wowed as they wait in lines or kill time before flights. But they also like to know where to go, how much time they have, and the status of things like departure times and baggage.