Less Hassle! How is 5G Changing the Way We Fly

This episode, hosted by Jim Morrish from Transforma Insights, dive into digital transformation in airports via private wireless networks and IoT tech. With insights from Mike Youngs, the Vice President of Information Technology at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and Barbara Pareglio, the Senior Technical Director and Smart Mobility Lead at the GSMA; tap right into the innovation happening on the ground to meet modern challenges in passenger experience, safety, security, connectivity and automation.

Transcript

Jim Morrish: [00:00:00] Hi and welcome to the Trending Tech podcast brought to you by the team at IoT Now, VanillaPlus.com and a warm welcome to all of you around the world who are listening in. My name's Jim Morrish, co-founder of Transforma Insights, a firm of industry journalists focused on all things related to digital transformation. For this episode of the podcast, I am joined by Mike Youngs, who is Vice President of Information Technology at Dallas Ft Worth International Airport (DFW).

Mike Youngs: Good morning. Great to be here, Jim. Thanks for having me. Exciting time at DFW, but also exciting times in terms of private wireless networks and IoT and technology in general. So excited to speak with you today.

Jim Morrish: Absolutely, definitely. And that teases our next guest, Barbara Pareglio, who is certainly deeply ingrained into the world of IoT and network supporting that. She is Senior Technical Director and the Smart Mobility Lead at the [00:01:00] GSM Association. So welcome, Barbara.

Barbara Pareglio: Thank you, Jim. Nice to talk to you guys. So as you said, I'm Barbara Pareglio. I'm, working in GSMA for more than 10 years now. And I indeed started in IoT and move a little bit further, to different vehicles. So now I'm pretty much involved in smart mobility. So I'm looking forward to this conversation where airports and mobility in general is of great interest for connectivity.

Jim Morrish: Thank you, Barbara. Now this is a slightly special podcast. That's the first in a series of podcasts that will explore digital transformation with a focus on cellular technologies. Um, future episodes, we're going to cover things like smart mobility, innovations, breakthroughs in connected vehicles, intelligent infrastructure, urban air mobility, and, and so on and so forth. But today the focus is on airports. Um, I, and I guess that's a topic with which many of us might feel that we are already overly familiar. Um, but there's a lot going [00:02:00] on in this space. Um, and, and airports are a bit of a hotspot for digital transformation right now. Um, clearly the overall customer experience is the focus, but behind that there's a strong emphasis on automation, security and efficiency.

And, and in particular I guess, more seamless integration between different domains and stakeholders, supported by things like biometrics and even just enhanced data sharing. Many of these developments, it seems, are enabled by mobile private networks. I'm sure that NPNs will feature frequently in our discussion today and clearly the benefits associated with a more seamless and better integrated air travel are huge and it's great to get the opportunity to hear from two organisations that are helping to move the relevant technologies and solutions forward. So, Mike and Barbara, welcome to the podcast.

It's great to have you as guests.

Mike Youngs: Great to be here. Thank you.

Jim Morrish: Excellent. But before we get stuck into airport technology, let's take a [00:03:00] quick look at some serious tech news stories that you both spotted. Mike, what stood out to you? What's the serious tech news story that you found for us?

Mike Youngs: Well, I think everybody, you know, heard about CrowdStrike. But for me, it was the cyber attack at Seattle Airport, which, you know, obviously hit very close to home. I know some folks up there, you know, the airport technology leaders in the U. S. And frankly, around the world. We know each other. We interact. So I have a sense of what they went through and the protracted recovery that it took to get fully operational. And, you know, the takeaway is that technology runs airports and so, you know, cyber security. Everyone's taking it seriously, but it was a very poignant example of how an attack can cripple an airport [00:04:00] impacting operations and customers. So that was a big moment in the airport industry and one that we hope. Our airport or any airport doesn't have to go through.

Jim Morrish: Yes, It certainly highlights some of the risks. I noticed the same story and, and what struck me was, was the level of disruption that can be caused and how that can, that can knock on through an extended time period over multiple areas, and as you mentioned, there's a protracted recovery period. And, and clearly as you, as you mentioned, you know, the potential consequences will only increase as things become more connected. So...

Mike Youngs: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, it also highlights, as you mentioned earlier, the complex ecosystem of airlines where airports, excuse me, where you have concessionaires, airlines, federal agencies and others who need to operate their, exchange information, effectively and, you know, disruption of that can just be Sort of cascade and be very impactful. So there's [00:05:00] some, you know, lessons learned from that, that we and other airports are trying to apply. And, I think, you know, the silver lining of it all is there's a heightened sort of vigilance in terms of cyber security. I'm a part of an industry group, Airport Council International. and then we have a business information technology steering group. And we've started a cyber working group to get airports to share information and collaborate on cyber issues because, that's an area where, you should never turn away any help or knowledge transfer because it's just such a serious ongoing threat.

Jim Morrish: Yes, it certainly seems it's certainly a critical area. I'm noticing these little islands of cooperation between different organisations just just to combat that cyber security situation. Definitely. Barbara, what serious [00:06:00] tech story caught your eye recently?

Barbara Pareglio: Yeah, I have to say that there was a lot, so I have to pick and choose, but I think, when I looked at and I wanted to focus a little bit more on airports, it's maybe not directly related to technology, but is the, let's say technology could be the solution. So I, what caught my interest is the forecasting of the growth on the traffic that we are going to see in the airports. I mean, I'll quote some of some of the numbers, for example from the association, the IATA. I mean, they mentioned 8.1% increase of passengers, 8.2% of cargo. So, we know that we had a quite, quite a healthy ecosystem up to COVID.

And then, that happened, and it's still since then growth, but now we are actually forecasting tremendous growth. [00:07:00] Even more than before. So I think it's interesting how we cope with this growth and I hope maybe Mike is going to talk about it. We can't have expansion of the airports as a physical, you know, foot, footprint everywhere.

So I think technology is where we are looking at all of us, but also from the ecosystem of the airports and the airlines are to, to cope with this. So that way caught my eyes and see how we can. Look around at the technology that can help to cope with this huge increase.

Jim Morrish: Yes, absolutely. I definitely think you're right to highlight that expected growth in many ways that makes efficiency and the adoption of technology and imperative. You just can't keep moving the same pieces of paper around even more quickly to support those kinds of levels of growth over an extended time period.

So it has to be modernised and with that we should proceed to the main discussion about digital transformation and cellular technologies in [00:08:00] particular are enabling a better and more efficient airport experience. Mike, let's start with you. What are the top airport issues that you're trying to solve with mobile connectivity?

Mike Youngs: Yeah, Thanks for the question. And Barbara teed it up nicely because, DFW is expected to have unprecedented growth over the next several years. We had 83million passengers last year, and we're going to 100 million within the next two years, reflecting the growth of this area, but just a demand for air traffic and being America's largest hub. And even though we're building a new terminal and modernising one, it's simply not fast enough. We cannot build fast enough to keep up with the demand. So Barbara made an excellent point, which is we've got to leverage technology. And so for us, the next three years is going to be about how we effectively manage the disruption [00:09:00] as we're building a new terminal and completely modernising our oldest one while it's still in operation. And, Those are just the two biggest examples, but we're also, modernising our main roadway through the airport, doing work on a number of bridges. So there's going to be a lot of things that impact customers, so that's kind of one of the biggest things. How do we maintain a high level of customer service through all this disruption that's happening? And so it's really having situational awareness. And that's where the IoT comes in to help provide that, whether that's cameras, sensors, LIDAR, etc.. But To effectively enable that IoT and sensorisation program. That's why we invested in a private mobile network. Just to give you some idea of scale. [00:10:00] Our campus is roughly the size of the island of Manhattan so it's a very large footprint and we have areas where we don't have good coverage with public cellular service. And frankly, the public cellular providers, they're interested in where their customers are, which isn't necessarily where we have operational needs, where baggage handling happens out on the airfield, etcetera. So we came to the conclusion that for our digital transformation to be successful, to be able to effectively manage the disruption that's coming, we had to invest in a private wireless network because I didn't set out to be a private wireless network operator. What I'm after is situational awareness to provide to my business stakeholders so they can run the airport effectively.

But I can't do that if I don't have the effective communications infrastructure to support it all.

Jim Morrish: [00:11:00] Absolutely. Thank you for summarising that, and it's clearly a fairly extreme situation in so far as you're already America's largest hub. You're expecting some very rapid growth. There's a new hub, there's a refurbished hub. There's a lot going on there.

Mike Youngs: Absolutely.

Jim Morrish: But coming to you, Barbara, you must have seen potentially less extreme situations, but you must have seen echoes of the same kind of challenges in similar situations at other airports. Does this fit with your experience of the kind of challenges that they faced?

Barbara Pareglio: Absolutely. So, I mean, I'm based in Europe, so I'm based in UK, but one of the, probably the biggest differences that we see maybe over here in Europe is the ability of not having extra space, not being able to expand further or create a new terminal. So, you probably, you know, Jimmy, you're also based in the UK, so how many years have we been talking about expansion of Heathrow or Gatwick or a new airport?

Because there are very good reasons, [00:12:00] you know, we don't have the luxury of space. So, we see some of the major airports already in Europe, but also elsewhere and I'm looking at also, it could be, you know, in Japan or in Singapore or Dubai, they also say. You know, we are restricted physically on the footprint that we have.

So they are looking for a way of modernising by using as Mike says technology. Um, but similar issues are primarily related indeed to modernising a passenger experience. So this is one aspect making sure that the journey of the passenger is smooth, that could be security or could be luggage handling, how much time it takes to go from terminal A to terminal B.

You know, so that is to make it more enjoyable, the passengers [00:13:00] experience, but the other one is the security, the actual security of the premises, and that's what Mike was mentioning is, it is much easier to have a network, which is covered in the area of the Terminal where most of the people are where most of the services are.

It's a little bit more complicated when we're looking at the periphery of the airport and there could still be an area which is regarded in the middle of the field. very difficult to reach, but also not able to cabling, everywhere. So that's where we play a role in the sense of wireless technology or other technology that could help to bring services over there.

And IoT, as I said, cameras and a lot of other services, drones are also being used. So there's a lot of these things that I see nowadays happening to support the efficiency and security and safety of the airports.

Mike Youngs: And if I could maybe highlight that [00:14:00] because, if you're not aware, there's been some high profile cases here in the US where folks gained access to the airfield and boarded an aircraft got into a cargo hold you know, there's been some fatalities associated with that. So there is an increasing emphasis on perimeter security. Not that it hasn't been important in the past, but, these recent events have triggered the need for enhanced security video, LIDAR, et cetera. Also, there's been some near misses, pretty high profile near misses between aircraft or aircraft and vehicles. And it's really technology that will help solve for that. And the technology requires robust connectivity in an area of the airport that is typically underserved from a public cellular service [00:15:00] perspective.

Jim Morrish: Okay, so I'm hearing stories which are, many common challenges to different airports around the world, but it's a different blend and a different emphasis on those different, different problems, but, but there are multiple common threads, you know, security being critical and, and also, a preference of not having cable. That just makes life a lot easier, I guess. So coming to you, coming to you, Mike, when you first began to consider, what you would have to connect in this evolving project that you have, this evolving situation, how did you approach the concept of connectivity and get to a private network?

Architecture. Architecture? How did you tackle that?

Mike Youngs: Yeah, well, sometimes, it's worth mentioning that sometimes enlightenment comes through some failure and one of our first really big, IoT projects was a smart restroom initiative and, you know, you like to think, you got it figured out as, as a CIO at an airport. and yeah, we'll just put it on wifi. [00:16:00] and we had a lot of challenges with wifi. It was, you know, basically the same Wi-Fi that the customers used and just had a lot of challenges and ended up connecting it to public cellular and even had some challenges there. But that was really kind of when we were like, we're seeing more and more sensors coming. and we don't have a good connectivity strategy. So through that kind of failure, , it allowed us to make the business case to our executives that we need to invest in a private wireless network. We did a pilot, in the US we have a free spectrum CBRS. So we piloted at one gate and also in our baggage area. And American Airlines actually partnered with us on that and went really well and based on that successful pilot, we were able [00:17:00] to get support to make the investment. We did take kind of an interesting approach in that I thought it was important to look at connectivity. Holistically, we had to issue an RFP or I think you guys call it a tender over there. So we issued a tender for a comprehensive connectivity that included Wi-Fi service to our passengers, as well as build out of the new private wireless network. And the thought being that You know, we wanted to leverage some common infrastructure, internet connectivity, but we also wanted to try to find a partner, who had the technical ability to help us manage all this, but we had a vision of monetising it, this new asset, private wireless network as well, and so we wanted a good business partner together. Because this was new for us. I mean, we're technology professionals, [00:18:00] but to understand the business model and how we might, utilise that asset to serve our operations, but also monetise it as well. So that was kind of the You know, the strategy behind it all, if you will.

Jim Morrish: Absolutely. And what you've described there is a journey in those little steps that you take towards, opening the door to a private network, mobile cellular private network, deploying that private network and unlocking, you know, huge potential for a diverse range of applications. Could you give me some specific examples of solutions that you've deployed to help overcome some day to day operational challenges that folks like myself and Barbara who travel through airports might recognise quite well?

Mike Youngs: Yeah, absolutely. We have some great examples that are pretty exciting. One of the first things we did, believe it or not, up until a couple years ago, we had no visibility of our [00:19:00] 160 plus elevators, escalators are moving walkways. So if one went out of service, we were dependent on an airport employee or passenger reporting it to us. So we've sensorised all those. So we have Real time visibility to what's happening. Another example is concessionaires. We've put sensors at all of our concessions locations. There's two reasons to do that. One is we harness that information and provide it to our customers through a mobile app so they know if Whataburger or Chick-fil-A is open, when they arrive at 11 at night. But also, our concessions department uses it because the concessionaires are contractually obligated to operate certain hours. And if we have weather events and flights get delayed, they're supposed to stay open longer, but they didn't [00:20:00] really have a great way to enforce that. So the sensors provide them that real time information. It was a winning implementation. For our operations, but also for our customers. Another one I'll mention because I talked about safety earlier, we implemented a runway incursion warning system and what that is, is technology that goes in the vehicles. It tracks their location in real time. Using global positioning systems. But then if they're getting close to an active taxiway or aircraft movement area, they'll get an audible alert in the vehicle. They don't, they don't go in harm's way. So we had to sensorise 500 plus vehicles that go out on the airfield. And, you know, those are the things that are great candidates for Private wireless networks because it's a sensor that it never [00:21:00] leaves our campus. 

And then you're not having recurring fees. And frankly, that's more robust coverage as well. So, those are some big examples of recent implementations we've done.

Jim Morrish: Absolutely. And what you're highlighting there is, I mean, there are a range of examples. They're all very compelling. They all result in an improved passenger experience.

Mike Youngs: Yeah, safe and efficient operations enhance the customer journey. Another thing I'll mention is, We did some analysis looking at our work order management system and found this was several years ago, but about 60 percent of our work orders were our, customer experience staff, noting issues and we, we want to get to a more. Predictive, proactive state, not waiting for somebody to notice that an elevator is out of [00:22:00] service or a toilet or whatever it is. And so it really, that's one of the key metrics we're going to be looking at going forward is one: how can we detect things and auto generate? Work orders not waiting for someone to observe it.

But even more with even more advanced sensorisation. How can we predict a failure before it happens? Perform preventative maintenance during off hours. So there's no disruption to passengers or operations. So those are the things we're really after.

 We just issued a new strategic plan. And, one of the key goals there is to reduce our facility maintenance costs by 20% by 2029. And we're only going to do that with robust sensorisation, getting us to predictive, proactive maintenance and really managing our facilities more efficiently.

Jim Morrish: Absolutely, [00:23:00] and that's another example of something that's simple in concept. It's quite, it's not difficult, necessarily difficult to execute, but it's a whole set of diverse things that you're supporting on this network and that are all pulling together to drive the efficiency of the overall airport.

So, a question to you both. In fact, I mean, you've mentioned Mike, a critical partner. Which is the folks providing connectivity, the network partners, etc. supporting the connectivity. Maybe Barbara first. What other kinds of essential strategic partners tend to, tend to figure in or factor into these kinds of airport type solutions?

Barbara Pareglio: At least based on what I noticed, obviously, is as Mike said, so there is a group of technologies within the airport, but they mainly focus in until now. On slightly different [00:24:00] problems that, there were of interest for airports. But nowadays it's as we go to more digital solutions. So there is also a need to get a grip or understand what all the new latest technology without a possibility.

So I understand that. I mean, I look at myself. I've been in telecommunication for 20, 25 years and I'm still learning. So I would imagine that if I needed to jump to work in our airports, I would have the same issues. I don't know what are the real problems, the technology that we use so far. It's just a matter of having a different type of knowledge and trust and work with a company that has this knowledge.

Obviously I can say because I'm coming from the telco, you need to partner with someone who has that knowledge. And it could be an MNO, but it could be any, any other company that has that knowledge. If you have security, you probably need to, you know, go to someone else where there's a security IoT.

You need some specialist, [00:25:00] and it depends on which IoT solution we're talking about, because it's such a broad thing. There is no company that, you know, fits it all. It is a very complex system. So I totally understand that it's not an easy challenge, but it is to find an ecosystem of partners that can help to tackle these issues together.

As you mentioned, Michael, your first failure was the connected restrooms, so it's, nobody would have thought that that is the first thing and the causing problem. But it is also looking at and then going, if we go for fully autonomous vehicles like you said you have 500 vehicles and if those all go autonomous.

You know you need expertise on both sides from the actual vehicle manufacturer for the autonomy from the connectivity. So this is where we see the partnership going and looking at more on different aspects and working together to create the ecosystem, the solution. And there, there is a need to work with partners, in my [00:26:00] opinion, to, to get to those solutions.

But what do you think, Mike, what is your experience?

Mike Youngs: I wholeheartedly agree. You said ecosystem. I was going to say it takes a village and because there's there's no one firm in our case, we're working with Nokia, and CTS, on the implementation and ongoing support But there's also, vendors that we're working with on kind of the strategy, starting to talk to some, security, specialist from a, from a private wireless, perspective and also trying to be, smarter in terms of our, our IoT and sensor strategy. As an example, we can get one sensor that would get say, Occupancy and and other, types of of data points versus, as an example, the initial sensorisation we did of our escalators was really just telling us [00:27:00] if it was on or off, which was a big improvement, but now we're getting more advanced sensors that can detect, too much vibration, too much heat so we can get to the point where we're anticipating a failure, not waiting for the notification of a failure. So, you know, it does take a broad range of partners and we built a pretty good group that's helping us here in DFW.

Barbara Pareglio: One thing, Michael, if I can add Jim and Mike. So, one thing that I believe, I mean, I'm a strong believer and I hope to continue to believe in it, is that in order to have those ecosystems working together, standards are important. We don't want to have a solution where it works perfectly, but then in two years it might disappear and then I'm locking on to a solution that I'm not able to, to change.

So I believe it's also standard solutions that are helping, [00:28:00] in not simplify, but at least to have a system that 's easy to keep alive for a long time. The life cycle of those solutions will be more manageable, but I don't know. I don't know what your thoughts are, both of you... 

Jim Morrish: I tend to agree that standards are pretty important. In terms of, you know, linking across ecosystems, and as you say, picking up solutions in one place and dropping them in another. The critical thing is, though, ongoing support of those standards, rather than having a standard which then gets put to one side and …

Barbara Pareglio: Correct.

Jim Morrish: … another one is created. We have to be careful with that.

Mike Youngs: And I agree. And, you know, we're trying to bring airlines on to our private wireless network. And I think one of the challenges will be that, you know, they operate across the globe, and they don't want to deal with different implementations at each of their airports. So those standards become very important. And how can we provide that private wireless network. [00:29:00] I do believe that airports should own and operate private wireless networks. Otherwise it kind of becomes a Wild West and you can't have everybody trying to build their own private wireless network and in an airport environment, in my opinion.

So having those standards and making it easy for, You know, device partners, to cooperate and for airlines to get on board. I think I agree that it is important.

Jim Morrish: Okay. Well, thank you. I mean, I'm conscious of the time here. So it's been an extremely interesting conversation. We've started off with, the, the enlightenment through failure of evolving from Wi-Fi through to private networks and, and the diversity of applications that can be supported and enhancing the customer experience and, and how you need a village and standards to, to actually deploy and make that work. Extremely interesting conversation. What we should do though, is move onto the kind of standard [00:30:00] closing section, which is always one of the most entertaining sections of this, of these podcasts. The What the Tech section, where we highlight some interesting and/or amazing stories from the world of technology.

And Mike, you mentioned something to me earlier. What, perhaps you can tell people, what made you smile or frown recently?

Mike Youngs: Yeah, well, one that made me smile is there was a story about, American football quarterback for the Washington commanders using virtual reality technology to improve his performance. And I'll just say, you know, as a backdrop, when I was thinking about it, there's been a lot of, I would say a little bit of negativity this year with Gen AI and, and some of the hallucinations and other things and, and a little bit of fear of technology.

I mean, I got into this field because I saw an opportunity to make a difference, [00:31:00] using technology to make folks safer to improve the customer journey. So I tend to gravitate to stories where someone saw the potential leverage of technology. And in this case, I'm a lover of American football. So you know, using virtual reality headsets to simulate and speed up what happens during the game to enhance their performance, embracing technology to become better.

It was a great story for me.

Jim Morrish: Yes, I like that story. It reminded me there was a, there was a quite similar one, which was a baseball player and he used VR to envisage pictures that he hadn't faced before. So he could, you know, understand the body movements and how the ball might come to him, so he could work out how to, how to in these pictures he hadn't seen before.

So, expect a lot more, a lot more technology in sport, I think.

Mike Youngs: Yeah, absolutely.

Jim Morrish: [00:32:00] Barbara, what caught your eye? 

Barbara Pareglio: Actually it went in a completely different direction, not much related probably to the topic we have here. But, you know, I do like, let's say history, art, ancient stories, you know, thousands of years ago. And, I just caught my eye that they could have figured it out from, analysis of DNA that we are talking about, you know, thousands of years ago of a genesis of, let's say, a group in UK and they could, see what the generations of the chief and everybody in the village was pretty much descended from one female.

So it just shows that it was like a different system. Whether it was based more, you know, normally we, we say is the line, the bloodline. Of the male in this case was the bloodline or the female. So it was kind of interesting that we could use technology and technology can [00:33:00] help us to get back to, rebuild our past.

and you, we see this one also yet. And again, I could mention Pompeii. I'm Italian. So, you know, how technology is helping them to discover a lot of new things. So I think as you mentioned, Mike technology, yes, there's a lot of hype. There's a lot of fear. There are things that are good, things that are bad, but at the end of the day, there is always a surprising way that technology can help us to find the past and future options in my opinion.

So that was, you know, something different, but it caught my eye.

Mike Youngs: Well said,

Jim Morrish: I thought much the same thing. It's amazing how that technology can be used to provide insights into things that were happening 2000 years ago. It's quite remarkable. So as we approach the end of this episode, Barbara, we've been talking a little around how mobile technologies support these changes.

Perhaps you might like to tell us a [00:34:00] little bit about the GSMA's activities in this area.

Barbara Pareglio: Thank you, Jim. So yeah, we have a community that we call a smart mobility community, where we tackle different topics, which is including airports, but it's also looking at automotive, drones and other means of transport, but we have a community so everyone can subscribe to join our newsletter.

So we have a website. If you, it would be easy just to look for the GSMA smart mobility community, you will find it, but we also have a lot of activity and one of the upcoming one is MWC. So it was one of our prime events. We will have a summit dedicated to smart mobility, which will be held on Wednesday, the 5th of March, from 10 o'clock in the morning until 5pm.

And I also want to point out where we will have an airport summit. on Tuesday afternoon, so the [00:35:00] 4th. So I would suggest anyone is interested to hear more about mobility in general, but also airports. So come and join us at MWC this year. And thank you for that. Thank you, Jim.

Jim Morrish: Okay, thank you very much. That sounds extremely compelling. Mike, Barbara, it's been an extremely interesting discussion and thank you for joining me.

Mike Youngs: Thanks for the opportunity to, you know, talk about what we're doing, really appreciate it.

Barbara Pareglio: Thank you, Mike and I will visit your airport soon.

Mike Youngs: Okay,

Jim Morrish: So with that, I think that we can draw this podcast to a close and just a reminder that you can subscribe to the Trending Tech podcast wherever you found us today and indeed, thank you for joining us and we're delighted to have you listening in as part of our growing audience around the world. We'll be back with another edition of the Trending Tech podcast soon, focusing on another aspect of digital transformation and probably also on involving mobile technologies as well. In the meantime, please keep checking with IoT Now and [00:36:00] VanillaPlus.com, where you'll be able to find more tech news interviews and event reviews plus more, you might even find something that I've written.

So thanks again for joining, and goodbye for now.