World's largest integrated baggage handling system opens in Hong Kong
Designed to tag, transport, and deliver nearly 20,000 bags an hour, the system is expected to move luggage from check-in to planes in 12 minutes.
By Gary Forger -- Modern Materials Handling, 8/1/1998
Not all airport baggage handling systems are created equal. And no place are the differences between two systems, one for the new millennium and the other for the years gone by, more apparent than in Hong Kong.Early last month, the new Hong Kong International Airport opened on Chek Lap Kok island just off the coast of mainland China. To accommodate the growth of annual passenger traffic from 35 million today to 80 million in the next millennium, the airport features the world's largest integrated baggage handling system (Siemens Production and Logistics Systems, Vanderlande Industries, and Swire Engineering).
Every hour of the year, a maximum of 19,200 pieces of luggage can be labeled, transported, sorted, and delivered to waiting airplanes at the world's third largest international airport.
Four tilt-tray sortation systems perform the primary sorts. Integrated with those systems are four secondary sortation systems that deliver bags to staging areas for individual flights. Total time from check-in to the staging areas in a maximum of 12 minutes.
On a trip to Hong Kong in early June, it was obvious that the old airport had a baggage system that didn't quite measure up to the promise of the new one. In fact, the two quite different flight approaches to the two airports are an apt metaphor for the differences in their baggage systems.
At Chek Lap Kok, planes maintain a single heading in their final approach as they come in over water to land on the island.
Contrast that with planes landing at the old airport. Their final approach started with one heading as they flew just above residential and commercial high rises. Planes then made an unconventional 47 deg turn to pass between two hilltops in the middle of the city just before landing.
The old airport's baggage handling system was no more straightforward than its final approach. Although conveyors were used, sortation was less than fully automatic with manual handling used on a regular basis. Meanwhile, throughput had peaked with little room for improvement as traffic increased.
There were no official numbers for the average time it took for luggage to be sorted for delivery to planes. However, there was no question it took considerably longer than the 12 minutes considered standard at the new airport. And for arriving passengers, there was plenty of time to pass through immigration and then wait before bags arrived at the appointed carousel.
Fully integrated system
The airport at Chek Lap Kok is actually quite a bit more distant from Hong Kong's central district than the old airport. While cabs and private cars still bring people to the airport, a special rail line has been built to take people directly from the central district to the airport terminal in just 23 minutes.
In addition to the traditional check-in counter at the airport, passengers can check bags at the airport rail station in downtown Hong Kong. In fact, passengers scheduled for an evening flight, for instance, can check luggage at the rail station in the morning.
All baggage receives a bar coded tag identifying its destination at the time of check-in. At Chek Lap Kok's rail station, labeled bags are placed on conveyors for induction into the baggage handling system. Upstairs at the traditional airline check-in counters, labeled luggage is placed on conveyors for delivery to the system. There are a total of 288 check-in counters for the 17 airlines servicing Hong Kong.
The baggage handling system is spread over three levels, each measuring 330 m by 150 m. On the top level are the check-in counters. The four primary sortation loops are on the next level down. The third level houses the secondary sortation lines to 152 staging areas, each dedicated to a specific flight scheduled to depart in the next few hours. Luggage moves between the three levels and within levels along a total of 3,000 belt conveyor lines measuring about 66,000 ft in length.
Controls for the baggage system are extensive. They include eight servers (four for backup), 50 control station terminals, 65 programmable controllers, 84 control panels, and 120 local area network nodes. In addition, the control system is fully integrated with the airport's information system, bringing together flight schedules and baggage data. The systems are sufficiently integrated, that, if need be, a single piece of luggage can be located and physically removed from the baggage handling system.
Luggage is inducted into the system from four major in feeds-two from check-in counters, one from the rail station, and the final one from a flight transfer line. Bar coded tags are read by fixed-position tunnel-array scanners. If there are any troubles reading the tags automatically, workers use hand-held scanners or keyboard data entry to correctly route each piece to its desired destination.
The bags are then directed to one of the four primary sortation systems. Each is a tilt-tray system with 80 trays which feeds conveyor lines for delivery to the corresponding secondary sortation systems.
Between primary and secondary sortation, all bags pass through x-ray machines that check for weapons. About 70% of bags pass on the first check. A secondary bank of x-ray machines and people perform subsequent checks until each bag is cleared.
The bar code tags on bags are scanned again for final sortation to the staging areas. A total of 28 tunnel array scanning stations are in the system.
Fully sorted luggage then sits in the conveyorized staging areas until flight time. At that point, workers manually load bags onto carts for delivery up a ramp to the airplane waiting at the gate.
Handling of arriving luggage is a much simpler process without the need to pass the pieces through the intricate sortation systems. Carts coming from planes are driven down to the bottom level of the sortation system. There bags are unloaded manually onto conveyors that deliver them directly upstairs to one of 12 carousels for pickup by passengers a short time after their arrival in Hong Kong.
And from all early indications, the 7 years it took to plan and build this new airport and its baggage system will pay off for many years to come.
System profile
Current airport passenger throughput: 35 million annually
Maximum airport passenger throughput: 80 million annually
Number of check-in stations: 288 for 17 airlines
Baggage handling system standard throughput: 13,680 bags/hour
Baggage handling system maximum throughput: 19,200 bags/hour
Expected initial daily throughput: 200,000 bags
Expected transport time from check-in to flight staging area: 12 minutes
Number of primary sortation areas: 4 tilt-tray systems each with 80 trays
Number of secondary sortation systems: 4 with a total of 152 conveyor staging areas
Total length of conveyor: 20 km (nearly 66,000 ft)
System control: 4 main servers and 4 redundant servers, 50 control station terminals, 65 programmable controllers, 84 control panels, and 120 local area network nodes
Project leader and baggage handling system integrator: Vanderlande Industries, 011 31 (413) 38 5515 770-661-7800
Control systems integrator: Siemens Production and Logistics Systems, 011 49 (911) 89 53 388
Conveyor system: Vanderlande Industries, 011 31 (413) 38 55 15 770-661-7800
Sortation system (subcontractor): Crisplant Inc., 800-805-0560
Bar coded luggage tag printers: Genicom, 703-946-2496
Hand-held bar code scanners: Intermec Technologies, 425-348-2600
Fixed-position bar code scanners: Sick Optic-Electronic, 800-325-7425
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