One suitcase, many stakeholders, no central supervisory body - Materna
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
AVIATION One suitcase, many stakeholders, no central supervisory body Tracking with the Blockchain / How airlines step up security in baggage transport Frankfurt Airport, 8:30 the baggage is handed over to the airline by the passenger, when it p.m. After a 12-hour is loaded into the airplane, at its delivery to the transfer area and flight, manager Kevin upon its return to the passenger. The IATA members are thus under- D. has finally landed. taking to seamlessly track every luggage item from the start to the Tired and impatient, he landing and make these data available. This is aimed at improving has been waiting for his passenger satisfaction and cutting costs, but also greater security. suitcase in the baggage claim area for half an Too many cooks... hour already. More and But why is it so difficult to achieve higher success rates in the trans- more passengers around port? The baggage transport of airlines is comparable with classic him are exiting, until his logistics processes in goods transport. The suitcases pass through flight number is finally deleted at the baggage The author carousel. Still no trace Thorsten Linke is responsible for inte- of his suitcase. It is grated passenger services as a prod- slowly dawning on him uct manager in the business division that he will be leaving Mobility of Materna. The computer sci- the airport with just his entist is working on software applica- hand luggage today. tions and IT solutions in the common It may not be much of use environment. a consolation, but the manager is not alone with this situation: According to the “2017 SITA Baggage Report”, 5.7 items of baggage are lost or delayed on aver- age per 1,000 air passengers around the world. This adds up to more than 20 million suitcases and bags a year. In mathematical terms, at least one air traveller will thus be affected in every flight numbering 200 passengers. This kind of thing can be really costly for airlines. Experts estimate that lost baggage causes airlines extra costs of approximately 2.1 billion Dollar (1.71 billion Euro) every year. In 2007, the number of baggage items reported lost or delayed per 1,000 air passengers still amounted to 19. Despite growing passen- ger volumes, the situation has thus been tangibly improved in re- cent years, for example by the installation of additional automated baggage and scanner systems. For those in charge of security at airports and airlines, the latest figures should still be hardly accept- able as every lost or delayed suitcase harbours a potential risk of post-hoc manipulation. Further improvement is to be ensured by IATA Resolution 753, which will come into force on 1 June 2018. This requires airlines to track baggage at four important junctures of the transport chain: when 36 TransportSecTec 1-2018
AVIATION
Ready for departure – but also ready for arrival
at the right place?in cabin baggage
various stations, changing the owner again
and again. Several airlines and airports
are involved, depending on the journey’s
number of stopovers. Added to this are the
regional security agencies and handling
agents. The more frequently a passenger
changes planes, the higher will be the risk of
losing a suitcase.
Baggage tracking designed to
improve security
Approaches for improving the baggage
tracking are undertaken from various sides
lately. Manufacturers have for example de-
veloped intelligent suitcases with electronic
tags. The latter are power-saving ink dis-
plays for address and flight data that are fastened to the suitcase cases, designed to make finding them easier. Rather on the luxu-
and automatically equipped with the latest data by the airline. Some ry side is an integrated speedometer with mobile radio that tracks
providers are integrating GPS-based localization functions in suit- the luggage item’s movement on the conveyor belt and notifies the
owner accordingly. But the more intelligence is integrated in the lug-
gage, the higher will be the energy demand, along with the weight. In
addition to which the lithium-ion batteries required as a power sup-
ply harbour potential fire risks, so that the first airlines have already
started prohibiting intelligent baggage. Also planned is a low-cost
version for better tracking based on passive RFID transponders that
are directly integrated in the baggage tag.
Blockchain-based baggage tracking
The methods outlined above may expand the options for safe and
faster luggage identification, but what is really needed are options
for improving the data exchange between the organizations involved
in the transport. As the responsibility for every baggage item chang-
es repeatedly in the transport chain, the data are also stored in the
respective local and proprietary systems of every organization. This
complicates the backtracking in multi-stop flights, for example, as
the last leg of the transport chain is not that easily determined at
first glance. The process moreover harbours a risk of data manipula-
tion, leading to potential security vulnerabilities.
The challenge essentially resides in tracking the ownership of a
baggage item. This would call for an umbrella system that all the
airlines, airports and service providers send their data to – a rather
unlikely scenario as the previously autonomous software systems of
all the organizations would need to be interlinked for it.
How blockchain works
One solution is offered by the blockchain technology. This is gen-
erally used to enable the ownership of physical or digital assets to
be safely transferred without a central supervisory body. To do this,
1-2018 TransportSecTec 37
AVIATION
The future of baggage drop
ticipant needs to have a valid driver’s licence to use the car. An air-
the blockchain maps a kind of digital account book and/or transac- line could thus monitor whether a suitcase has already undergone a
tion register wherein the asset transactions between market par- security check or if a passenger has even registered for the respec-
ticipants are logged. These assets can take many different forms: tive flight in the first place.
goods, money, rights, information or indeed data about baggage
items. The function of the blockchain is insofar no different from More security thanks to blockchain
that of an account book which is kept by hand on paper, in an Excel A blockchain solution also offers greater security as all the data are
file or a software. stored in it unchangeable and transparent for all market partici-
The major difference, however, is that the blockchain is realized in pants. As soon as a suitcase runs through a tracking station or scan-
the form of a distributed transaction network, based on the block- ner, these data will be stored in the blockchain as a transaction. This
chain software of all parties involved. This obviates the need for a leads to a high level of transparency in the process chain as one can
central body where all the data are stored and processed. Every- always see which station was responsible for a suitcase and where
body taking part in a blockchain-based process is provided with the last tracking point was. The blockchain therewith offers valuable
transparent access to all the transaction data. While transfers were optimization approaches for fraud detection and risk minimization
previously stored by banks as a central platform, for example, fi- processes in the airline industry.
nancial institutions would be rendered completely superfluous in a This kind of solution has only been discussed so far, and there is also
blockchain-based financial system. The Bitcoin crypto-currency is no ready software for this scenario. This although the technological
such a payment system that manages completely without banks and effort for airlines would be relatively minor. The market participants
permits market participants to engage in financial transactions with would merely need to open their existing software systems by way
one another safely and quickly. The Bitcoin is only one of several of a so-called API (programming interface) and transfer the data
application examples, mind you. from the baggage transport system to the blockchain, or read them
The software that the blockchain is administered with furthermore out from there and file them in their own systems. The advantage:
enables the definition of specific rules in so-called smart contracts. Existing infrastructures can still be used, protecting previous invest-
A car-sharing platform could for example define a rule that the par- ments.
38 TransportSecTec 1-2018
AVIATION
Bringing more intelligence to the transport the entire transport process can be further automated thanks to the
process centrally stored data record. As ready solutions are not yet avail-
Upgrades should be provided for the automated baggage drop-off able for the application scenario presented here, airlines should
machines, however. They come first in the process chain and are the cooperate with specialized IT service providers who have the neces-
initial data collection point. Suitcases need to be provided with a sary process know-how and the technologies required. The Germa-
unique and forgery-proof identification at this very first registration ny-based IT service provider Materna not only advises airlines and
point already. Passengers could theoretically change their baggage airport operators in all aspects of blockchain application but has
after the weighing again and attach the label that the machine has also already installed baggage drop-off machines at many interna-
printed out to another luggage item, however. A unique identification tional airports in cooperation with the airlines and integrated them
thus calls for the initial creation of a digital twin of the luggage item in the transport processes.
Foto: geralt/Pixabay
The software that the blockchain is administered with furthermore enables
the definition of specific rules in so-called smart contracts.
that embraces as many parameters as possible. This can also include
a photograph or scan besides the weight, as well as the electron-
ic identification data with intelligent suitcases. This data record is Equipped with this consultancy competence, Materna’s experts are
then stored in the central blockchain and allows for safe and unique devising future-oriented solutions for safe and automatic baggage
luggage identification by all the organizations involved along the handling based on the blockchain technology with partners from
entire travel route. And it also enables very fast and unique tracking the airline industry. A first step would be the creation of an initial
if a suitcase has been lost along the way. The data that are stored ecosystem on the basis of a IATA working group, with selected air-
in the blockchain can furthermore not be changed post-hoc, so that ports and one airline to realize a proof of concept that could serve
manipulations by way of the IT system can largely be excluded. as a blueprint for an industry-wide solution. As the blockchain is a
non-proprietary technology, the IT and consulting partners involved
Conclusion in such a project are freely selectable, so that there is no risk of a
Baggage tracking with the blockchain technology enables the latest vendor lock-in through proprietary software.
status of a luggage item to be transparently tracked at all times.
The tracking data help to find lost luggage items more quickly, while www.materna.de
1-2018 TransportSecTec 39
You can also read
