Iberia Airport Services, Iberia’s handling division, has more than 7,000 pieces of ground equipment at the 29 airports where it provides ramp services to third parties. The fleet is made up of all the necessary machinery for loading luggage in the hold, boarding passengers, towing aircraft, and carrying luggage, merchandise, passengers, and employees at the airport. That is, cars, vans, tractors, cars, trucks, elevators, stairs, conveyor belts, platforms, and buses, among others. Controlling the status, use, and positioning of 7000 pieces of equipment is not an easy task due to their constant movement and displacement of during the day.
Currently, IBAS has an innovative fleet management and geopositioning system for motorised equipment. These systems have allowed IBAS to achieve operational, quality, and safety improvements in its service.
Where’s Wally ?
The main benefit resides in cost savings per year for equipment search. Fleet control procedures required the counting of equipment at various times of the day to ensure their position and status. In airports with high activity, such as Madrid or Barcelona, this task was carried out by dedicated supervisors.
With this system, it is possible to see at a glance where the equipment is and who is operating it. It is also possible to view the equipment available if it is necessary to reinforce the operation with auxiliary machinery. The capture of geolocation data in real time allows for improved and automated monitoring of the service and makes it possible to identify at any time which is the closest equipment for the provision of the service.
The vehicle start control is activated automatically with the ramp agent’s ID card. This has made it possible to eliminate the use of keys and their management. The custody of more than 7,000 keys, their correct identification and the daily allocation of the operators who handle the equipment used to be carried out manually by dedicated personnel. Currently, the equipment can only be accessed when the agent enters the identification card if the system recognises him or her as able to operate it, without the need to spend additional time on key management.
Telemetry, the Oracle of Activity
The identification of the driver-team is maintained throughout the driving operation. The telemetry system stores information on all our employees, monitoring their behaviour while driving. The analysis of the way each employee drives, individually, makes it possible to identify good practices and issues that can be improved: speed control, behaviour when turning, improvements in accelerations and stops, etc. This measure has allowed us to improve operational safety and reduce bumps and collisions by 10%, leading to a 15% increase in the availability of equipment as there are more units in operation.
In parallel, the monitoring of consumption and CO2 emissions provided by telemetry makes it possible to anticipate technical problems in vehicles and equipment when the average indicators deviate from the operating parameters. Thus, it has been possible to reduce emissions and increase energy efficiency in the use of the motorised fleet.
Geopositioning is also very useful to supervise the parking of vehicles within the permitted zones that are assigned to each handling agent. This is vital to position the equipment in the areas closest to the operation during times of less activity at the airport, which makes it possible to reduce travel and operating times, in addition to avoiding fines associated with incorrectly parked equipment.
