Round-trip investment.

Rio de Janeiro is the largest tourist destination in Latin America and the entire Southern Hemisphere. The main point of arrival for tourists, whether they come from Europe, Africa, the Middle East or the rest of the Americas, is RIOgaleão. The concessionaire that took over its administration in 2014, was looking for a video monitoring system that could deal with their first major challenge—the 2016 Olympics—and provide long-term support for airport operations, which they will be responsible for until the end of the concession in 2039.

With the images, the airport gained agility in responding not only to safety, but to the entire passenger experience inside RIOgaleão, from the sidewalk to the moment of takeoff. Each selected model met the requirements for each sector of the airport, which, in terms of area, is the largest in Brazil, and the country’s second busiest as well. The new system favored a high level of performance: the airport achieved the highest on-time rating in Latin America and was voted the fourth best airport in South America.

All of these areas are monitored using ISS software, from monitoring of the parking areas, to loading/ unloading sidewalks, access roads to the airport, cargo terminal, the Federal Revenue Service office, passenger boarding, aircraft movement, baggage carousels, to employee-only areas where the various access control devices are integrated into the software.

According to Alexandre Nastro, ISS country manager in Brazil, “RIOgaleão now has 100% image coverage for sensitive areas, and we are now working to transform these images into data for decision-making and better service delivery.”

The use of the images has been expanded to support the passenger experience. “The cameras have been used in simple operations—like a passenger who has lost his parking ticket. We were able to follow the passenger’s path through the airport, where he passed by, and point out where he lost the ticket,” comments Datacenter Coordinator Bernardo Hoelz.

The system tracks passengers even before they enter the airport facilities. AXIS P1365-E Network Cameras, equipped with Axis Lightfinder technology that yields color images even in the dark or under very low light conditions, were installed throughout the airport sidewalk area and in other low-light areas, such as the RIOgaleão container area, which is among the busiest cargo terminals in the country.

Everything at RIOgaleão is superlative, including the volume of data trafficked over its network. Because of that, according to Bernardo Hoelz, one of the reasons for Axis’ favorable evaluation in the project is Axis Zipstream technology, which contributed to reducing the total cost of implementing the project.

“Zipstream was one of the points where Axis was rated highest, due to the large number of cameras we needed to purchase, with the possibility of cost-effective storage,” says the Datacenter Coordinator.

By 2039, it is estimated that more than 80 million passengers will use the airport. This means another important factor for the project was its scalability and readiness for future developments. After all, the investment was made with the long-term in mind.

One of the examples of these possible developments is the measurement of vehicle flow and time of stay in certain areas, such as the loading/unloading zone, and the execution of analysis to predict when a congestion may happen, generating alerts so that staff responsible for traffic can respond proactively to the event.