A baggage handling system (BHS) is a type of

conveyor system A conveyor system is a common piece of mechanical handling equipment that moves materials from one location to another. Conveyors are especially useful in applications involving the transport of heavy or bulky materials. Conveyor systems allow ...

installed in

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

s that transports checked

luggage Baggage or luggage consists of bags, cases, and containers which hold a traveler's personal articles while the traveler is in transit. A modern traveler can be expected to have packages containing clothing, toiletries, small possessions, trip ...

from ticket counters to areas where the bags can be loaded onto

airplane An airplane or aeroplane (informally plane) is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and wing configurations. The broad spe ...

s. A BHS also transports checked baggage coming from airplanes to baggage claims or to an area where the bag can be loaded onto another airplane.

History

The first

automated Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...

baggage handling system was invented by BNP Associates in 1971, and this technology is in use in almost every major airport worldwide today.

Process

A bag is entered into the baggage handling system when an airline agent, or self check system, assign the luggage a tag with a unique ten digit

barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...

Airlines An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in whic ...

are also incorporating RFID chips into the tags to track bags in real time and to reduce the number of mishandled bags. The BHS will then scan and sort the bags by airline. Then a series of diverters along the conveyor belt will direct the bags into the baggage handling area. Although the primary function of a BHS is the transportation of bags, a typical BHS will serve other functions involved in making sure that a bag gets to the correct location in the airport. In addition to sortation, a BHS may also perform the following functions: * Detection of bag jams * Volume regulation (to ensure that input points are controlled to avoid overloading the system) * Load balancing (to evenly distribute bag volume between

conveyor A conveyor system is a common piece of mechanical handling equipment that moves materials from one location to another. Conveyors are especially useful in applications involving the transport of heavy or bulky materials. Conveyor systems allow ...

sub-systems) * Bag counting * Bag tracking * Automatic Tag Reader (ATR) (Reads the tags on the luggage provided by the airlines)

Security

Post

September 11, 2001 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...

, the majority of airports around the world began to implement baggage screening directly into BHS systems. These systems are referred to as "Checked Baggage Inspection System" by the

Transportation Security Administration The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that has authority over the security of transportation systems within, and connecting to the United States. It was created ...

(TSA) in the US, where bags are fed directly into Explosive Detection System (EDS) machines. A CBIS can sort baggage based on each bag's security status assigned by an EDS machine or by a security screening operator.

References

External links

How Baggage Handling Works (howstuffworks.com)
{{Commercial air travel Aircraft ground handling Air freight Luggage