A new service from Valour Consultancy has made great strides in identifying a much higher number of egates deployed in airports. A grand total of 13,409 egates have been found to be installed globally in airports in the latest edition of our ‘Smart Airports Tracker’. Launched 12 months ago, the Smart Airports Tracker is based upon over 1,800 individual contracts identified and recorded, providing unique granularity and insight into the current status of automation and self-service for passenger processing in airports. This total of 13,409 is estimated to represent 82% of the actual number of egates deployed, as calculated by Valour’s accompanying report, ‘The Seamless Passenger Journey in Smart Airports’.
The three main applications for egates in airports are pre-security, self-boarding and border control. Self-boarding is shown to be the largest, with the Tracker recording over 5,300 units installed and regularly demonstrating double digit growth in recent years. Valour Consultancy’s Airports and Borders director, John Devlin, said “Over half of self-boarding egates are biometrically-enabled, although our Tracker shows that the majority of those installed last year were non-biometric.” He added “This is due to the growing adoption in lower tier airports which are currently looking to improve operational efficiency rather than implement seamless biometric experiences.”
TRACKED ABC EGATE INSTALLED BASE BY AIRPORT TIER
ABC egates for border control and immigration is the more established of the other two applications, with close to 5,000 identified in the Tracker, compared to over 3,000 pre-security egates. The Smart Airports Tracker shows contrasting development of each, with growth of ABC slowing whilst the volume of pre-security egates recorded has accelerated again.
Europe dominates in terms of regional egate adoption in airports, accounting for approximately half of the volume in each application, with Asia Pacific shown to be the second largest market. “Whilst egates have seen good to strong adoption in most regions, North America has pursued alternative approaches” explains Airports and Borders market analyst, Shubh Karbhari. “US CBP agents implementing the Traveller Verification System collect biometric data from international arrivals and, whilst there are some biometric boarding egates deployed, there has been far greater implementation of biometric pods and totems to assist airline personnel in verifying the identity of departing travellers.”
SHARE OF TRACKED PRE-SECURITY EGATES BY REGION
Contract information is broken down by vendor in Valour’s Smart Airports Tracker. dormakaba is shown to have the largest share of pre-security and boarding egates, and along with Gunnebo they account for more than 80% of egates in use. Within the more specialised market for ABC egates, Vision-Box (an Amadeus company) is found to have over 25% of the market, with Magnetic Autocontrol in second place. EASIER features across all three applications and a number of other companies, such as Digicon, are found to be building a growing presence in partnership with system integrators such as IDEMIA, SITA and Thales.
Footnote:
Valour Consultancy’s Airports + Borders group current market intelligence services include:
- The Seamless Passenger Journey in Smart Airports report assesses the on-going adoption of automated and self-service touchpoints for check in, bag drop, pre-security, immigration and boarding gates, enabled by biometrics, and the vendor ecosystem supporting this. Includes a 10– year forecast.
- Smart Borders: The Future Evolution of Land, Sea and Air Borders is a new report examining the evolution towards electronic border control systems, which automatically capture, record and match travellers’ biometrics as they cross through land, sea and air borders, and the potential for risk-based assessments and pre-clearance in future border control programmes. Includes a 10– year forecast.
- Smart Airports Tracker is a new service, based upon several years quantifying and researching the market, that records the latest and historical installations of self-service check in kiosks, self-bag drops, pre-security egates, immigration kiosks and ABC egates, self-boarding egates, and biometric solutions, including pods and totems and identity management platforms.