Airport baggage sorting, tracking and monitoring

The Net 6000 is the largest automatic transit baggage handling system ever implemented in Italy and one of the leading solutions in Europe was officially opened last July 8 at a ceremony attended by Gianni Letta, the Undersecretary of the Prime Minister’s Office.

Net 6000: Automatic Transit Baggage Handling System

Supplied by Elsag Datamat, the Net 6000 was installed in an area of Rome’s Fiumicino airport covering about 7,000 sq m just before the beginning of the summer vacation season (strategically positioned near the runways to reduce transport times and trolley traffic congestion at terminals), it enabled Aeroporti di Roma, the operator of Rome’s airports, to handle up to 6,000 bags per hour during the peak traffic month of August.

The new structure is mainly addressed to “transit” passengers, or those arriving from other airports who have to change aircraft to reach their final destination, and whose bags have to be transferred from the inbound to the outbound flight in the shortest possible time. The Net 6000 reduces the possibility of lost or misdirected bags, ensuring that almost 100% of passengers are reunited with their baggage. It’s not just a coincidence that this year Codacons, the Italian association for the protection of consumers’ interests, reports a huge drop (from 18% in 2007 to 8% this year) of complaints with subject baggage mishandling for travelers during summer vacations.

The Net 6000 provides all the functions offered by an advanced handling system: bag induction, identification by means of RFId tags and bar codes, X-ray security checks, distribution to loading bays, and tracking and control at individual bag level before loading onto aircraft.

Multisorting Baggage Handling System

The heart of the Net 6000 is the Elsag Datamat MBHS – Multisorting Baggage Handling System, one of the top performing solutions available today, which uses innovative “cross belt” handling technology, which is the preferred technology handle bags with care, in addition to objects that are fragile, have high friction surfaces or are irregular in shape.

The transport system is made up of trains of carts, with onboard cross-belt cells that move perpendicularly to the direction of the carts and assist parcel loading and unloading to the assigned destination.

But the innovative technological feature of the Multisorting machines is the very high controllability of the cross-belt cells. Thanks to an impressive distributed cell control system is possible to select, according to the physical features (size and weight) of the transported item, the more suitable specific cell activation directive.

The control system can select the right directive among about a hundred of different ones. Activation directives are characterized by a peculiar speed and acceleration that allow loading and unloading in a perfect way each item from the smallest and light one to the largest and heaviest one. 

The technology adopted means that the system uses 30% less energy than similar solutions available on the market, making Fiumicino airport (the sixth-ranking airport in Europe by traffic) one of the first in the world to comply fully with “green” power usage directives now being introduced internationally.

Commenting on the importance of the event, Elsag Datamat CEO Paolo Aielli stressed that the implementation of the Net 6000, which is recognised for its excellence at international level, represents the culmination of an innovation process that has drawn on the company’s technology and process skills in the airport segment, as well as on its experience in automation, security and Information & Communication Technology.

Elsag Datamat has demonstrated that it can provide a response to all the needs of a modern airport, offering an integrated platform of products and solutions for the efficient management of both physical processes (check-in, handling, security controls, sorting and redelivery) and information flows (secure tracking of bags throughout all stages of the process, operation monitoring, critical event management support).