System of the automatic sound notification

Situation

In 2005 the Group of EAST LINE began implementation of the development plan for the International airport Domodedovo under the motto "Creating the Future" which will come to the end in 2020. Reconstruction will affect all areas of air terminal complex with a main goal – increase in a passenger traffic and increase in the service level.

Within this project it was decided to automate process of the notification of passengers and staff of the airport as earlier used technology of submission of speech declarations had a number of shortcomings. First, function of the notification was completely assigned to announcers therefore errors in pronunciation, a format of declarations were inevitable. It had negative effect on perception of information by passengers and staff of the airport, and also in many respects did not conform to requirements of the international airlines.

Secondly, it was not given an opportunity of a parallel output of declarations to different process areas: announcers were forced to expect release of the channel for transfer of the message or to interrupt broadcasting of other announcers.

And, thirdly, there was no possibility of intellectual management of submission of declarations in real time. For each declaration the announcer had to consider his priority, process areas of broadcasting, informing time, to independently define structure of the message. In connection with all above-mentioned factors the Domodedovo Airport was in great need in implementation of a new modern system which had to reduce as much as possible influence of a human factor on quality of the notification and provide uninterrupted operation and accuracy of broadcasting.

The management of the airport addressed to Aplana company for implementation by specialists of Development center of systems for transport terminals of the planned project.

Solution

Within the first stage specialists of Aplana company developed the system of automatic declarations which provides speech informing passengers and staff of the airport on the current situation in the territory of all complex: about the beginning and the end of registration, landing to run, issue of baggage, changes in the schedule, emergency situations and services offered on air terminal. Broadcast of messages is implemented at the same time through 16 audio channels in different passenger zones of the station, on the terminal of the Paveletsky station and in local zones in workplaces of specialists. It excludes delays in information transfer and guarantees its uninterrupted and timely receipt exactly there where it is necessary.

For the first time in Russia, thanks to the system of automatic declarations the possibility of automatic formation of messages and their broadcasting more than in 25 foreign languages is implemented. Submission of declarations in national languages does more comfortable stay in the airport of foreign passengers, in particular those who do not know Russian or English languages. A system also provides the sound notification of the passengers using the aeroexpress train in the territory of the airport and on the terminal of the Paveletsky station where runs for which it is necessary to submit messages, depending on the schedule of electric trains are automatically determined. In a system the possibility of simultaneous service of the bus terminal at the airport and in the city is implemented.

At development of the system of automatic declarations specialists of Aplana company conducted a research of acoustic conditions in the territory of air terminal complex and with their accounting developed algorithms of compilation of sound fragments which allowed to increase legibility of the speech in big halls of the airport.

At the second stage of the project the notification especially for business and VIP halls taking into account the passengers who are in them was implemented.

Commissioning of the web expansion of a system of automatic declarations allowing to manage a system from jobs of agents on registration and landing of passengers through the intranet became the last stage of works.

Web expansion allows agents through the standard browser to open and close landing of passengers aboard the plane, to manage information output about run to information displays, to initiate standard sound messages and to send them both to the common passenger areas, and to local zones of the technology place.

Results of Implementation

The solution provided achievement of a main goal of the project – the high quality of the automatic notification of passengers and staff of the airport conforming to the European standards and requirements of the international airlines. Among the main advantages of a system of the automatic notification it is necessary to select:

• Reduction of labor costs on broadcast of sound and visual messages
• Reduction of time for search of up-to-date information about the current situation on the transport terminal
• Formation of uniform space of management of means of informing
• Comfortable work in a system thanks to the simple and pleasant interface

The used technologies

MS SQL Server DBMS 2000; Windows Server 2000/2003 Enterprise Edition OS; The Programming language of Borland With ++ Builder