The travel industry has been growing well over the past decade. As flight tickets are getting cheaper due to the competition in the market, more people can afford to travel around the world without pinching their wallet.
However, enormous growth often carries various problem with it. In this case, we are going to talk about luggage transfer.
As the number of people traveling increases, chances that a bag could go missing increases as well. And in most cases, human error is the cause of it. This is when blockchain technology can be introduced to solve the issue.
How does it work?
A blockchain is an algorithm that performs encryption of message and establishes a link to the next block if the previous hashes are identical.
We could put a specific message that could identify a luggage base on that message while encrypting the message and record it down into the block. By doing so, each luggage that checks in contains a unique code that is unidentical even though the design of the bags may be the same.
Now, consider each phase of luggage transfer is a node; where each node contains the necessary data generated from the beginning of the process. As the baggage is transit from one place to another, the system could scan the presence of the luggage in a particular area, updating the location of the baggage before boarding for the next flight.
This information is updated continuously in the system where it is visible to anyone that holds the unique code.
Here is the simple flow to understand how it could work:
1. Luggage is given a unique code.
2. Scanned over the system during check-in
3. Scanned once more when it has been transferred on-board
4. Final scan when it reaches the destination.
By using the blockchain technology, it could save a lot of time tracing baggage in the event if someone were to lose theirs. Imagine how much resources can be allocated to other areas of operation.
Dealing with the big data.
As ideal as it may seem, synchronizing each hardware around the world could be a problem if there is so much data needed to transfer across the globe. Network traffic congestion is one of the difficulties as any delay in network response time could potentially affect the departure time of a flight.
Decentralized feature plays a part to reduce the reliance on the network bandwidth to address this issue. As each location acts as a node, the blockchain is updated immediately once the baggage has arrived at its destination.
New chains can be created for every destination and then be removed after all baggage has arrived at its destination.
Is the private information safe?
People are concerned about their private information since blockchain is transparent to the public. In this case, messages encryption plays a vital role, and the only way to retrieve the data is by providing a unique code that was given to the passenger during check-in.
This unique code will be a reference to the encrypted message, and it is tallied in a centralized system by the airline company. This way, your private information is safe from the public while able to track your baggage through the blockchain.
Do note that at this point, there is no way any person could hack the encrypted message in the block. However, since the system that holds all traveler information is centralized into the airline company server, it is hackable to steal customer’s data from the airline server itself. Your luggage is still safe in the process as the hardware only recognize the hash information of the previous block.
If it is good why not implement it now?
There are various factors we need to consider before implementing such technology that could affect everyone around the globe. One is which each luggage has a unique universal code that is understandable by all the airport system around the world. By doing so, the cost of new equipment can be staggering.
The Transportation Security Administration, TSA plays an essential role in recognizing such technology to be used as one of its security guideline on luggage. Most luggage sold are usually in compliance with TSA standards, mainly on the locking system.
Although it is callous to introduce such technology into the existing system, it is not impossible that such innovation can be done by phase to allow everyone to participate and understand the mechanism of the blockchain system. As people became more comfortable to adapt to the changes, airline companies can then fully integrate into their existing system.
The future of airports
It is natural that we shape the future with an optimistic view. Technology is continuously evolving, and blockchain is following every footstep in its development. Nobody knows what the future of airport system may look like, but given the acceptance of new technology by a few international airports around the globe, it is only a matter of time when blockchain will be accepted as well.
As you can see, there are lots of possibilities for the application of blockchain in our day-to-day, which inspired many companies to tackle the common man’s problem with this amazing technology. And if you are a regular traveler, one issue that you’d wish the blockchain technology can help improve on is customs and immigration. As a matter of fact, there are already a few companies in the Digital ID space working on this, and one of the more experienced ones is Xenchain.
Founded by a team with years of domain experience in personal ID management, finance and remittance, Xenchain’s app is designed to address the common UX problems that end users face, coupled with state-of-the-art facial and text recognition technology, and a social validation score system that rewards users when they validate others on the network.
Surf on to https://xenchain.io for more info.
