Air transport specialist SITA it is to set up a industry registry to help facilitate the use beacon technology after its technology research team SITA Lab issued the findings of early trials at airports.
Beacon technology uses Bluetooth to trigger the display of information on mobile devices relevant to the specific location, which could drive its use for airlines, airports and retailers as a means to communicate with passengers at various points at airports.
SITA Lab says trials with an airline and airport have produced results which are both promising and cautionary. “The relatively low cost of beacons makes them an attractive option for airports, but we need to be careful of adopting a gold rush approach to deploying them," says SITA chief technology officer Jim Peters.
"It is clear from our initial research that beacons should be treated as a common-use piece of infrastructure. Airports serve multiple airlines, and airlines travel to multiple airports. It is a very complex network - too complex for everyone to manage their own deployments. It will need careful management."
SITA Lab says its research highlight that at airports, where an airline does not have dedicated gates or other infrastructure, a common-use approach to beacon technology makes sense. For this reason it says it is building an industry registry for all beacons. "We are already working with some early adopters but are looking for other airports, airlines and app developers who are interested in leveraging the potential of beacons in the air transport industry to join the project,” says Peters.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
