The system is supposed to be installed by the fall, in time for February's Super Bowl in Jacksonville and the accompanying crush of travelers expected to use the airport, said Chip Snowden, chief operating officer of the Jacksonville Airport Authority.
By knowing exactly where luggage is along conveyor belts behind the airport's walls, the Transportation Security Administration believes any dangerous bags could be quickly located. Airlines are confident the technology will help them reduce the hundreds of millions of dollars spent every year on rerouting wayward bags.
The small, paper-thin devices known as RFIDs work by using electronic readers to record data stored within microchips. The chips are encased in plastic tags laced with metal bands that serve as antennas, which transmit signals to monitoring devices.
Tests have shown that the chips can be read with an accuracy rate of about 99 percent, better than the 85 percent typical with bar-code scanners.
But the chips' price begins at about 20 cents for disposable versions, far higher than the penny or so it costs to produce bar-code tags.
The Airport Authority is spending between $200,000 and $300,000 on the devices, Snowden said. The authority is trying to recoup that money through state and federal grants and by eliminating some of the 30 part-time, temporary workers who reroute lost bags.
Few other airports have adopted this high-tech solution.
McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas is believed to be the only other U.S. airport scheduled to have a comprehensive radio tag system like Jacksonville's, industry officials said. Installation there is to be finished next spring.
Some airports that used the radio tags partially, such as San Francisco International Airport and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, switched back to bar-code systems. They said the radio systems were unnecessary.
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