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The baggage system

Published: 17/03/2008 - Filed under: Archive » 2008 » April 2008 » Guide to T5 »

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Guide to T5: The baggage system

T5’s baggage system, which can deal with 12,000 bags an hour, was designed by baggage-handling experts Vanderlande Industries, which has already installed similar baggage systems at Amsterdam Schiphol, Hong Kong Chep Lap Kok and Oslo Gardermoen.

Vanderlande uses two systems called Tubtrax and Bagtrax, which allow bags to travel quickly around the terminal – at around ten metres per second between Terminal 5A and 5B, for example. Tubtrax ensures that checked luggage is loaded onto a tray on the conveyor belt, presumably making it easier to manoeuvre and track.

Ton Bijlaart, UK system sales manager for Vanderlande Industries, says: “The conveyor belts are the same technically but we are using the latest technology with them, which makes them much more reliable. Once the bar code on the bag has been read and tagged then nothing can go wrong, as the tray will be taken to the destination matching the bag.”

But if the tag comes off, which is common during baggage handling (as reported in the March issue of Business Traveller), then there is no bar code to read and subsequently nothing the new technology can do. This is where the staff step in.

Bijlaart says: “We have the latest conveyor-belt technology, so the chance of tags being ripped off is reduced. If, however, a tag cannot be read, the bag will go to a number of manual coding stations, where staff will fit a new one and work out where it is supposed to be.”

The control system Vanderlande uses to track each bag works by feeding live information through computers which can update the status of a bag and direct a late or transferring bag through a fast-tack system, straight out to the plane.

Bijlaart says: “The system is special because normally a system determines just one route, and if a bag is late it still takes that same route, but in Terminal 5 we can change the route that bag takes. It’s a dynamic decision-making system.”

Early luggage is taken to a storage facility, which can hold up to 4,000 bags until their flights are called. The facility is operated by cranes and is the second one of its kind in the world, after Amsterdam’s Schiphol.

In keeping with the forward-flowing concept of the terminal, when you check your bag in at one of the 158 check-in counters (including 96 fast bag-drops) it will drop down below the floor so that passengers can continue forwards to security and departures rather than going around the check-in area.

And for those arriving at T5, the reclaim area has 11 carousels, nine of which have 90 metres of belt – enough, as Bijlaart says with enthusiasm, to cater for the 32 million passengers who will pass through Terminal 5 by 2011. The baggage reclaim space is a breath of fresh air set in a “cathedral-like room” with lofty ceilings, a welcome change from what we are used to at the other terminals.

Bags for connecting flights are transferred by van between T5 and other terminals.

Visit vanderlande.co.uk for more details.

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