A Solution That Accurately Measures Airport Congestion Without Identifying Passengers' Faces

Who Is This For?

A story for organizations responsible for the flow of passengers through the terminal.

• Airport authorities and passenger terminal operators

• Organizations operating passenger processing procedures such as security screening and immigration

• Passenger service divisions of airlines and ground handling companies

• Organizations operating commercial facilities in the terminal, such as duty-free shops and food and beverage outlets

• Smart airport and passenger flow management system integrators

They all share one challenge: processing surges of passengers with limited staff and counters, while knowing and responding to the situation in real time.

The Problem on the Ground

Four problems arise together in passenger flow management.

• Operations: It is hard to know in real time how many people are waiting at each security checkpoint and how long they will have to wait. Decisions on when to open additional counters come too late.

• Passenger experience: When remaining wait times cannot be communicated, perceived wait times feel longer than they actually are.

• Safety: It is difficult to anticipate when crowds will concentrate in specific zones at specific times.

• Technology: Airports are especially sensitive spaces when it comes to personal information. As a result, the metrics that matter most, individual dwell time and movement paths, have often been abandoned altogether.

Why Were Existing Methods Insufficient?

The root of the problem lies in what each measurement method records.

• Visual observation and on-site patrols show only the state at the moment of observation and cannot cover multiple points at once.

• Processing system logs record people who have already been processed. Those currently standing in line, the people still to be processed, remain invisible.

• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth-based measurement relies on the assumption that passengers keep their devices on with specific settings enabled, an especially unreliable assumption for international travelers.

• Video cameras suffer from increasing occlusion as crowds grow denser, and their potential to identify individuals makes it difficult to capture dwell time and movement paths.

• Manual sample surveys are valid only for the period surveyed and cannot serve as a basis for day-to-day operations.

In short, there was no solution that simultaneously met all four conditions: requiring no devices, covering people not yet processed, operating continuously, and not identifying individuals.

How LookOut Solves It

LookOut reads the terminal space in 3D using LiDAR sensors and generates passenger data through the following steps.

1. Detection and tracking: People are detected as anonymous 3D coordinate objects and assigned unique IDs so their movement trajectories can be tracked continuously. The system recognizes position and movement, not faces or physical appearance.

2. Area integration: The detection areas of multiple sensors installed on ceilings and walls are merged into one, so a large terminal is observed as a single, seamless space.

3. Virtual analysis zones: Points that need observation, such as security checkpoint queues, check-in counters, and departure hall entrances, are designated as zones in software. When counter operations change, only the zones are reconfigured.

4. Queue calculation: The number of people in each zone and their throughput speed are calculated together to produce the current number of people waiting and the expected wait time. The value reflects how fast the line is moving, not just how long it is.

5. Alerts: Alerts are triggered when crowding exceeds a set threshold or when congestion persists beyond a set period.

6. Accumulation and analysis: Congestion by zone is visualized as a heatmap, and data by time of day, day of week, and period is accumulated and delivered through a dashboard. Events are recorded automatically for later review and analysis.

7. De-identification: Because the system uses 3D coordinate data rather than raw video, passenger flow is analyzed without identifying passengers' faces.

No devices required, people not yet processed included, continuous operation, and no facial identification. LookOut meets all four conditions above at once.

What Changes

When what is measured changes, the response speed of terminal operations changes.

• Decisions to open more counters and reassign staff can be made based on expected wait times, before congestion builds.

• Communicating remaining wait times to passengers reduces perceived wait times.

• Alerts received before crowding reaches critical levels enable proactive safety management.

• Accumulated congestion data provides the basis for redesigning terminal flows and expanding facilities.

• Zone-level traffic and dwell data can be used for commercial facility placement and leasing operations.

• Pre-processing passenger flow, which processing system logs cannot capture, is secured while reducing the privacy burden.

Application Scenarios

LookOut's crowd and queue analytics has been deployed and is in operation as the queue management system of a major domestic airport. Application points are divided according to the terminal's procedural stages.

• Security checkpoints and immigration: Expected wait times are calculated from the number of people in queue zones and their throughput speed, and are used for both counter operation decisions and passenger information.

• Check-in counters: Waiting passengers are observed separately by airline and zone, identifying peak periods by time of day.

• Baggage claim and arrival routes: Crowd density and dwell time are monitored together to detect congestion around specific carousels in advance.

• Gate lounges and connecting corridors: The number of people dwelling in each zone is observed and used as a basis for placing seating and amenities.

Terminal Crowd and Queue Analytics, LookOut Is With You

If you need a detailed consultation on LiDAR-based crowd and queue analytics tailored to your passenger terminal, please submit a request through the "Request a Custom Consultation" form. Tell us about your terminal's layout and the procedural sections you need to observe, and we will propose a sensor placement plan along with the metrics we can deliver.