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Agreed. I think self driving technology can help here. I imagine a lobby area where you check-in, go through passport and baggage control, then board a pod that

Agreed. I think self driving technology can help here. I imagine a lobby area where you check-in, go through passport and baggage control, then board a pod that securely takes you right on the tarmac, to the mobile ladder adjacent to your half of the plane. The whole duty free forced march -> endless tread mills -> gate -> bus routine is harrowing busy work. It creates multiple choke and synchronization points, thus multiple queues: you queue to enter the gate, than wait for everybody to board the bus, then queue again as people take their seats and place the luggage in the overheads. It's a telling sign of how bad the current system is, when boarding on a single front door is considered a large speed up. A pod can take you to the right door in real time, gradually, as people arrive and clear passport control, overlapping multiple activities and allowing tighter turnaround. Why should the gate close 40 minutes before take off? If a passenger just checked in, and it takes 10 minutes for the pod to get to the plane, that's the minimal effective cutoff (with a larger official cutoff for safety). As for passport and baggage control, those can be automated and sped up to a large degree using new technologies. And of course, the will of people in charge to change anything - I've spent to many hours waiting long queues while only 30% of the desks were manned, to know they just don't see queues as a problem. As for the duty free revenue this whole circus brings in, it must be massive.

rimliu 8y ago
> The whole duty free forced march -> endless tread mills > -> gate -> bus routine is harrowing busy work. Is it not a purpose of it, at least in theory the opposite, to distribute flow os passengers in space and in time? Sorry, I do not really see how self-driving helps here, looks like a solution in search of a problem. Technology already changed a lot of things (self checkins, etc.) but it did not make flying a bit more enjoyable.
- cornholio 8y ago
  I disagree that the spatial layout of an airport is, even theoretically, designed to distribute the flow of passengers in time - otherwise, it wouldn't involve multiple queue/sync points, some involving all passengers of a flight. It's a historic design from the age of grass strips, that sprawled as modern airports grew to handle more and more passengers, increasing the walking and waiting required from one point to another to the current, extreme situation. We now have buses taking you to the plane, airport monorails taking you to the terminal (Frankfurt) [1], and even pods moving you around the airport (Heathrow). [2] Self driving pods are the obvious response to unify all these transport needs in a single end-to-end system that can spread the passenger load in time and massively simplify the airport construction. [1] https://www.frankfurt-airport.com/en/travel/transfer.detail.suffix.html/article/travel/terminal-transfer/terminal-transfer-via-skyline.html https://www.frankfurt-airport.com/en/travel/transfer.detail.... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ULTra_(rapid_transit) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ULTra_(rapid_transit)
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    Pods are just another form of queue...with their own sync points. Except now you've made the system brittle by making it dependent on a specific configuration of processes. Great when everything works...but far, far worse if any part of it breaks down.
    - cornholio 8y ago
      The disembarkment from the cars to the tarmac should be almost instantaneous, and there is plenty of room there to queue if passengers are arriving faster then they can take their seats in the plane (a rare occurrence, absent other upstream sync points). There should be no traffic congestion and choke points in a properly designed airport because there is an enormous amount of horizontal space. Failures due to very specific processes are a typical situation now - I recently waited about 20 minutes when the transfer bus would no longer start, then wasted another 15-20 minutes because the replacement bus took us to the arrivals section of another terminal - while we needed to connect to another flight on the same terminal. Had to go through baggage control again, passports, had to wait for the Frankfurt monorail mentioned above, almost lost the connecting flight. Seems to me a flexible fleet could improve this situation enormously with awareness of the passenger circumstances - even to the point of taking you straight to your connecting plane without visiting the terminal. Failure should be isolated to the affected passengers, short of catastrophic events where there is no routearound.

rimliu 8y ago

> The whole duty free forced march -> endless tread mills > -> gate -> bus routine is harrowing busy work. Is it not a purpose of it, at least in theory the opposite, to distribute flow os passengers in space and in time? Sorry, I do not really see how self-driving helps here, looks like a solution in search of a problem. Technology already changed a lot of things (self checkins, etc.) but it did not make flying a bit more enjoyable.

cornholio 8y ago
I disagree that the spatial layout of an airport is, even theoretically, designed to distribute the flow of passengers in time - otherwise, it wouldn't involve multiple queue/sync points, some involving all passengers of a flight. It's a historic design from the age of grass strips, that sprawled as modern airports grew to handle more and more passengers, increasing the walking and waiting required from one point to another to the current, extreme situation. We now have buses taking you to the plane, airport monorails taking you to the terminal (Frankfurt) [1], and even pods moving you around the airport (Heathrow). [2] Self driving pods are the obvious response to unify all these transport needs in a single end-to-end system that can spread the passenger load in time and massively simplify the airport construction. [1] https://www.frankfurt-airport.com/en/travel/transfer.detail.suffix.html/article/travel/terminal-transfer/terminal-transfer-via-skyline.html https://www.frankfurt-airport.com/en/travel/transfer.detail.... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ULTra_(rapid_transit) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ULTra_(rapid_transit)
- gamblor956 8y ago
  Pods are just another form of queue...with their own sync points. Except now you've made the system brittle by making it dependent on a specific configuration of processes. Great when everything works...but far, far worse if any part of it breaks down.
  - cornholio 8y ago
    The disembarkment from the cars to the tarmac should be almost instantaneous, and there is plenty of room there to queue if passengers are arriving faster then they can take their seats in the plane (a rare occurrence, absent other upstream sync points). There should be no traffic congestion and choke points in a properly designed airport because there is an enormous amount of horizontal space. Failures due to very specific processes are a typical situation now - I recently waited about 20 minutes when the transfer bus would no longer start, then wasted another 15-20 minutes because the replacement bus took us to the arrivals section of another terminal - while we needed to connect to another flight on the same terminal. Had to go through baggage control again, passports, had to wait for the Frankfurt monorail mentioned above, almost lost the connecting flight. Seems to me a flexible fleet could improve this situation enormously with awareness of the passenger circumstances - even to the point of taking you straight to your connecting plane without visiting the terminal. Failure should be isolated to the affected passengers, short of catastrophic events where there is no routearound.