Network Computing reports that McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas is overhauling its baggage-handling systems to incorporate radio-frequency identification tags.
McCarran is the first U.S. airport to commit to RFID on a large scale. Denver International Airport and Jacksonville (Fla.) have started small RFID trials, but steep pricing for the nascent technology–as high as 70 cents per tag until recently–has relegated RFID to aviation science fiction. Now the cost is dropping as manufacturing, transportation and logistics companies begin to deploy the technology. By far the biggest booster has been Wal-Mart, which is requiring all its suppliers to affix RFID tags to their cartons and pallets by 2006.
At McCarran, a new conveyor with RFID readers will cost about $100 million to build. The tags–900-MHz chips that store information about each unit to which they’re affixed–will cost $25 million, or 25 cents each, from Matrics, a venture capital-backed company.
By April, McCarran will begin affixing stick-on RFID tags to bags. The alternative to RFID, optical scanning using barcodes, require more labor. RFID tags are scanned passively, as they move through conveyors and are more accurate. Optical scanners generally have an accuracy rate of 85 percent to 89 percent, compared with 99.7 percent for RFID.
RFID provides a nearly real-time view of where bags are in the system, and simplifies the rerouting of bags when flights are delayed. Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines are both said to be looking closely at RFID technology for use in airports where they control their own IT systems.
