Baggage handling system
The baggage conveyor system is a means of transport for pieces of baggage used in airports or large passenger terminals for cruise ships .
Development of the baggage handling system
With the rise of aviation , more and more people were using airplanes as a means of transportation, airplanes got bigger and airports became more complex. Since it was no longer possible for passengers to accept or drop off their luggage on the apron themselves , and the introduction of the passenger boarding bridge meant that they no longer entered the apron, a system had to be invented that would initially transfer the luggage from check-in to the aircraft as well as after landing from the aircraft to a separate area for the passengers to collect their luggage.
The first baggage handling systems mostly consisted of simple, straight conveyor belts , the technology of which was taken from the opencast mine . Over time, the systems became more and more complex and new facilities - such as round conveyor belts (so-called baggage claim carousels), sorting systems and storage systems - had to be introduced in order to cope with the constantly growing amount of luggage.
Working principle
The passengers check in their luggage at a counter - the so-called check-in counter . A conveyor belt then transports it to a location where it is loaded onto trolleys and finally onto the aircraft by airport employees who specialize in fast loading and unloading.
Conversely, when an aircraft arrives, the luggage is unloaded from the aircraft and loaded onto a car. The cars are driven to a collection point that is not visible to the passenger. This is often located under one roof next to the terminal building. At this point, the luggage is placed on a conveyor belt, which then transports the luggage inside the building. There the luggage can be received by the passengers - on the so-called baggage claim belt.
Conveyor technology
When it comes to conveyor technology, a distinction must be made between two basic principles:
- simple, "loose" transport of luggage
- Container conveyor technology in which items of luggage are transported in containers
Systems with containers
This system can be found, for example, at Frankfurt Airport or in Terminal 2 of Munich Airport. Here, the pieces of luggage are “married” to a container in the so-called “wedding”. The containers then head for their destination, with the baggage items being identified here using reflective marks or barcodes attached to the container, making them much easier to read than with a system in which the baggage item may cover the baggage tag with the destination information.
A distinction has to be made here between active and passive conveyor units: Active conveyor units have a motor and travel their route automatically, which makes the conveyor route itself quite cheap and uncomplicated (easy to maintain). Passive conveyor units are driven by belts and / or rollers and therefore require a more complex route, but have much cheaper containers, as these are mostly simple plastic tubs.
The great advantage of the container conveyor system is that an extra sorting system is not necessary, as this takes place decentrally on the way (comparable to a motorway trip from Frankfurt to Munich, where the corresponding branches are taken). Furthermore, higher speeds are possible than with belt systems and there is less “loss of luggage” due to falling off the belt or getting stuck. More sensitive items of luggage are also less likely to be damaged.
Disadvantages include costs and maintenance, as well as the problem of empty containers that somehow have to be returned to check-in. At Munich Airport, this was efficiently solved in that the empty containers take the luggage of the arriving passengers with them on the way back.
This system is only worthwhile at large airports.
Systems without a container
This system can be found at most smaller airports because it is easy to maintain and cheap. Suitcases are simply transported on conveyor belts, slides and sometimes rollers.
To identify the items of luggage, the barcode on the labels attached to the items of luggage must be read again and again at the scanner gates. This is often associated with problems, as the barcode has to be in the field of vision of the scanner. There are different approaches to sorting, the following would be mentioned here:
- so-called pushers (mainly used in the USA)
- Crossbelt sorter
- Tilting tray sorters , which can be found in Terminal 1 of Munich Airport, for example
In order to be able to sort the pieces of luggage, a certain minimum distance is often necessary between them, so that they are separated via short conveyor belts at different speeds. This is also necessary in order to accelerate items of luggage, for example for a fast tilting tray sorter cycle.
The main advantages here are in terms of cost, while the disadvantages lie in the maximum throughput (2 to 3 m / s compared to 12 to 14 m / s with container systems) and the high rate of baggage items that are lost in the system (falling off the conveyor belt , get stuck in corners, tilt in front of the X-ray device or similar).
present
At large airports - like in Frankfurt - kilometer-long conveyor belt systems are installed and the pieces of luggage are individually transported in tubs in order to be able to use the systems more efficiently by means of barcodes , to sort luggage, to transport it more quickly, to divert and store it.
At the airport in Kuala Lumpur , the system now known as the baggage handling system consists of belts with a total length of 33 km, some of which run through a kilometer-long tunnel between the buildings. In some systems, the tubs with the pieces of luggage are accelerated to up to 40 km / h in order to be able to reload a piece of luggage from one aircraft to the next as quickly as possible. This is important to enable short transfer times at aviation hubs and to adhere to the minimum connecting time .
Web links
- At Frankfurt Airport there is a "labyrinth" for millions of suitcases. Article on airliners.de from July 6, 2014, accessed on April 11, 2017