Airport Experience® News - Customer Service Issue 2023

Charpin and the Moment Factory team believe that the future of digital wayfinding will involve more customized passenger content, something that Ran of Synect believes will be delivered through intuitive AI systems and mobile technology. “I believe that mobility design is something that society is already accustomed to, and you don’t have to be in the younger generation to familiarize yourself with it,” says Ran. “People already use apps that are delivered through modern design, anything from rideshare to the weather.” Ran and the Synect team are constantly working to innovate the ways in which passengers can more seamlessly engage with wayfinding technology. “Can we make it so I don’t need to scan anything, to download anything, to get my customized experience?” asks Ran. “I think it’s about addressing the passenger in motion, allowing them to engage in a manner where they experience what they want, and not the other way around.” Airports are also eager to find the next wave of innovative wayfinding. “We have just attended the Future Travel Experience Conference in LA, where many partners and vendors exhibited their products, from internal wayfinding to app, geofencing and other technologies, we believe the playground has just opened,” says Sailer of EWR’s plans to continue building out their digital content library. The team at MCO agrees: “With a digital system in place to broadcast information, further integration with facilities and operations will allow the airport to capitalize in a ‘smart way’,” says Starke of a future where additional personalization elements can aid passengers in everything from time-specific recommendations to avoiding crowds.

As developers and airports bend and change their wayfinding systems to suit a more personalized passenger experience, they’ve already noticed a distinct appreciation for the departure from static signage and communications. At MCO, “There’s a mascot named Annie the Astronaut that’s designed to speak to the children [with wayfinding information],” says Ran. “We’ve had feedback that there are children whose parents are lost and don’t know where to go and they’ll tell their parents where to go — the parents say, ‘How did you know that?’ and they’ll reply, ‘Annie told me!’” It’s stories like these that motivate Ran and his team to keep working to give passengers a more informed and enjoyable travel experience.

Top, Above: Moment Factory’s digital wayfinding at Newark Liberty International Airport combines New Jersey-focused trivia and tourism information with wayfinding elements through the system’s smart gates, which artistically display flight information and boarding cues.

“Regardless of the technology, if you want to know what really drives us, it’s all about the emotion of our passengers and it’s the true benchmark of what we are,” he says. “The feedback we’ve gotten is that passengers are very receptive to this technology, because they feel they are in control. If we can help them predict the little bit of the future ... it makes life a little more sweet.”

36

AX NEWS CUSTOMER SERVICE ISSUE 2023