Orlando is 1st airport in the world to use crowd-flow radar to promote social distancing
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. - The Orlando International Airport is the first airport in the world to get new crowd-flow radar technology.
The radar system, called Evenflow Crowd Radar, uses different colors from green to red to let you know how busy your gate is. They measure the number of people at gates to encourage passengers to properly social distance.
“What we think is rather than having a strike team where people patrolling trying to maintain social distancing, if you give passengers information, they will use it to their best advantage,” Greater Orlando Aviation Authority CEO Phil Brown said.
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Travelers FOX 35 spoke with noticed them right away.
“I’m not sure how much safer it is, but it is easy to figure out where you can sit and if it’s packed or not,” traveler Cecilia Ward said.
The airport partnered with a company called 'SYNECT' to bring the radar system here for a trial run. They were installed at nine Southwest gates before the Thanksgiving holiday.
SYNECT is already gathering information from them.
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“So far, the system has indicated much greater compliance by passengers with social distancing,” SYNECT CEO Yahav Ran said.
Airport leaders said this is the latest step they are taking to ensure passenger safety, especially since the airport is extremely busy this holiday season.
"Over the weekend, Saturday and Sunday, we were the busiest airport based on departing passengers,” Brown said. “It all depends, in our view, on providing passengers and customers on information to make sure they understand this is a safe and healthy destination.”
The radar system will be here for about seven months. After that, SYNECT will decide if the technology will be brought to other airports.
Tune in to FOX 35 Orlando for the latest Central Florida news.