Last year Gatwick airport looked to address the issue of navigating its large site by installing beacons that would guide passengers through the airport thanks to an augmented reality (AR) section of their smartphone app. Now the app has gone on to win a number of awards thanks to its application and creative use of AR technology.
The new Gatwick passenger app won the Mobile Innovation of the Year award at the National Technology awards recently, along with picking up the Mobile App of the Year award at the Real IT awards as well. Once more the airport itself won the Cloud Project of the Year award and the Real IT awards after becoming the world’s first major airport to introduce a cloud-based Flight Information System (FIDS).
The AR passenger app and the FIDS are the first of several new passenger-facing digital innovations that Gatwick have in the work as part of the airports ‘digital transformation’ programme which includes rolling out an advanced chat bots, AR wayfinding and the airport-wide use of the Internet of Things.
“I would like to congratulate Gatwick’s IT team for their hard work and effort getting these innovations over the line and also our partners Mobile 5, who designed the app, and AirportLabs who built VisionAirVisionnair.” Said Cathal Corcoran, Chief Information Officer, Gatwick Airport. “These awards come at an exciting time for IT innovation at Gatwick as we are transforming the way that airport information is communicated. We will soon connect passengers to intelligent chat bots using Facebook Messenger, Skype, and other popular apps and our 2000 wayfinding beacons have the capability to enable augmented reality wayfinding for passengers, making it easier to navigate the airport’s two terminal buildings.
The new passenger app was launched at the start of the year and provides personalised, real-time fight updates, gate information and check-in and security queue times straight to the users smartphone. The aim of the app is to allow holidaymakers and business travelers a more seamless experience when travelling through Gatwick. This is all thanks to the intuitive maps that guide passengers through the airport by using 2,000 navigation beacons which are placed throughout the site.
For more on the Gatwick passenger app and its AR features in the future, keep reading VRFocus.
via Mint VR