RFID Tags For Your Luggage
If you’ve ever flown on an international flight, you know that having baggage lost is frustrating and it can be almost impossible to get it back. And while technology exists to keep better track of our luggage, only 11% of airlines are now using it. This technology is RFID, or Radio Frequency Identification, and its uses are countless, but companies across a variety of different verticals are slow to adopt.
However, a few years have passed since RFID’s first deployment in 2005 at Hong Kong, Milan Malpensa, and Las Vegas McCarran airports. Those who have implemented it achieved a 97% luggage retrieval success rate, compared with 80% that use traditional methods. Statistics like these, provide a glimpse of yet another great technology that could make the stresses of traveling, well, less stressful.
Other industries have jumped on this train too; the Pharmaceutical industry has just begun using barcodes to keep track of patient prescriptions, and even some hospitals are using barcodes for patient records.
The food industry is now too also beginning to get a glimpse of the barcode industry, as foods a grocery stores will soon be encoded with a newer and larger barcode label that would enable consumers to know where their food came from, and more.
While a fair amount of airlines are working on RFID solutions to reduce the amount of luggage lost, many are hesitant to implement a solution. If airports choose to implement an RFID system across all of their carriers, they’ll need to decide on what type of RFID tag to use (active, passive, or semi-passive), what memory size should be there, what air protocol should be implemented, and whether or not to encrypt the information. To help facilitate these decisions, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) is currently working on international standards for RFID baggage tags.
While it will presumably be a few more years before consumers begin to see the fruits of their labor, the promise of RFID luggage tags brings hope to all of those who have lost, or fear losing their precious luggage on their travels.
