b'INFO TECHNOLOGYCVG75maintaining cost control and improving operational efficiency, butThe badges themselves, he adds, could also serve as an also improving safety at the same time, notes Bettua.auxiliary warning method during severe weather. How many He was convinced VPS could help on all three fronts. transient workers come into an airport space and dont have the luxury of carrying an airport radio? he asks rhetorically. Then and Now To address privacy concerns, data collected by the system is Traditionally, airports and construction companies rely on twoanonymized and encrypted at NSA levels says Bettua.methods to expand their span of control and prevent construction workers from straying into areas that could be dangerous for bothCosts and Challengesthem and airfield operations: physical fencing and safety escorts.For Cobb, using technology is a smart spend, and he encourages With a typical ratio of one safety escort for every five workersorother airports to consider where they are spending funds. As an one-to-one for the most sensitive airside projectscosts can quicklyexample, he contrasts purchasing a single-use jobsite fence with escalate. For a yearlong project with 100 workers, Volan estimatesinvesting in a data analytics strategy that can have significant, lasting that safety escorts can add nearly $1 million in secondary costs. forensics value regarding security, safety and other project implications. Cobb, whose airport handles about 9 million annual passengersAs with any trial, there were details to work through. Initially, and significant cargo volume, points out that monitoring projecthe considered using a watch-based monitoring and analytics worksites that have temporary fence barricades relies on seesystem already used by the airports housekeeping and something, say something principles. So thats where weenvironmental services departments. But this wasnt ideal, for started to hypothesize: Is there technology that can actually helpseveral reasons. The first was durability. You have to remember, improve security, safety and cost implications?theyre construction workers, Cobb advises. Theyre moving A nine-month trial that concluded earlier this year helpedconcrete; theyre moving stone. Its not the best environment for answer that question. a watch. The second was functionality. The watches relied on GPS signaling. But getting accurate location information requires The execution of the pilot program was relativelyfrequent pings, which means high battery usage. At best, we straightforward. Volan installed its VPS, a solar-powered, wirelesswould get three to four hours of working time, Cobb recalls.mesh network that is independent of the airports own IT systems, at the construction site for a 500,000-square-foot airline hangar. The installation took two employees less than four hours to complete. Construction workers and other project personnel were issued Bluetooth-connected badges on lanyards that send data about their location to the network. The badges not only helped safety escorts keep track of workersvia a dashboard on portable electronic tabletsbut also notified workers if they approached a no-go zone. Because airport worksites are often noisy, the system uses haptics rather than audio alerts. If workers dont heed the warning, Cobb says, it starts to escalate up to the appropriate authorities, be it the Police Department or the Airport Operations Center.Bettua notes that VPS not only reduces the number of safety escorts needed, it also improves the efficiency of those who remain. For instance, instead of safety escorts physically navigating through the airfield to secure the SIDA (security identification display area) badge numbers of wayward workers, the system can automatically detect them and instantly send their SIDA badge information to Airport Operations. This allows airport personnel to pull up a live map, possibly with closed-circuit video footage, and triangulate to intervene before a safety incident occurs. Apart from virtually real-time personnel monitoring and live alerts about breaches, the system also provides valuable after-incident data. If, for instance, a raised runway light is knocked over, information stored in the cloud can be played back for analysis and filing reports. Aggregated data, Cobb notes, can be used to detect larger patterns. You see where that badge has traveled. What are the consistent travel paths? What are the areas that we should be focusing on over others?AirportImprovement.comSeptember 2024'