Cincinnati Airport Highlights Benefits of Queue Management Solution

In 2016, CVG achieved its best ranking in the 21-year history of the U.S. Department of Transportation airfare report. It also experienced its highest passenger traffic volume since 2005, with almost seven million passengers passing through this international transport hub.

To keep the passenger experience positive, even as carrier and traveler numbers continue to rise, the airport implemented Veovo queue and flow technology at TSA checkpoints during 2014. The airport was the first in the United States to utilise this solution, which allows them to measure, understand and improve the traveler experience, and to better plan and allocate resources in cooperation with TSA.

After one year of use, the airport was in a position to announce that, due to the data they had gathered, they had successfully reduced TSA security line wait times by one third. In a 2015 report produced by Purdue University, standard wait times had dropped by nearly over four minutes from 13.2 minutes to 8.9 minutes, compared to 2011.

In 2016, the TSA grabbed headlines across the country as passengers slogged through frustratingly slow-moving lines.

“Fortunately, CVG did not experience extensive queue times during the 2016 peak summer travel season as other airports across the country clamoured for adjustments and lobbied for additional TSA staffing,” says Mindy Kershner, Sr. Manager, Public & Government Affairs at CVG. “We demonstrated more efficient scheduling, via predictive analytics, which negated the immediate need for staffing increases.”

“Before Veovo, our peak wait times were 45 minutes and higher. Now, our peak wait times are beneath 30 minutes, with the average wait times well below 15 minutes for general security and below five minutes for PreCheck,” says Brian Cobb, Vice President of Customer Experience at CVG.

Since then, the airport has gradually expanded the solution and added new features to help streamline operations further and continue improving the passenger experience. Passenger-facing wait time monitors and CVGairport.com interfaces provide immediate wait-time status, easing natural travel anxieties associated with queue lines and setting realistic expectations. Additionally, CVG has gone so far as to establish service level agreement (SLA)-like standards for self-accountability, ensuring average wait times below 15 minutes are consistently delivered.

For the second quarter ending June 2017, the average wait time for expedited screening registered at 11min28sec. This is rather significant given CVG’s surge in peak-day checkpoint throughput from 10,000 to over 15,000 during the same period.

Stephen Saunders, Senior Manager of Terminal Operations at CVG explains: “We have added a new feature that allows us to understand the pattern of how lanes are being utilised throughout the day. This helps us better understand TSA’s lane utilisation on any given day. Our future goal is to pair this information with passenger show-up profiles and wait-time inputs to complete a story of how the check point is operating as a whole, and help the TSA develop lane open/close plans based on predicted throughputs.”

“We have used tangible data to work with our partners at TSA to adjust officer start time. We previously noticed a high spike in queue waits during our heaviest early bank of morning flights, levelling off after about 7:30. We collectively identified TSA schedules were misaligned with the flight schedules. Later security lane openings by as little as 15 minutes were incapable of catching up to and meeting the passenger demand surge. Because of this data, we recommended staffing adjustments to the local TSA leaders, which ultimately passengers and airlines benefited as evidenced by a near-immediate reduction in wait times below target and customer compliments via the Airport’s social media platforms. We remain engaged with TSA HQ in an attempt to collaborate to make real changes using this technology,” says Saunders.

CVG and Veovo are working together to expand the solution to the outside of the terminal and throughout the airport grounds in order to amplify the passenger experience. CVG is hopeful to gain a better understanding with improved parking data analysis to discover whether more passengers are using off-site competitor parking lots, and show where passengers dwell once inside their facilities.

Brian Cobb, Vice President of Customer Experience at CVG, elaborates that it helps them both target their marketing and better compete in an area where the race for passengers is fierce.

“It’s the “old real estate adage of ‘location, location, location,'” says Cobb, explaining how the data could point to where the busiest parts of the terminal are, and may be the best location for a new restaurant or retailer.”

“Our hope would be to expand the technology throughout the airport, to better understand the passenger journey from start to finish, well beyond the security checkpoint. Once we better understand the passenger journey, we can make strategic decisions, to better utilise our facilities. This allows us to demonstrate to our passengers the ease of use of our facilities and can help in calming their travel anxieties. Our goal is to use the data to create an unforgettably positive passenger experience,” ends Stephen Saunders.