September 8, 2024
by
Jonathan Andrews
London’s Heathrow airport will unify and govern its data and artificial intelligence (AI) to better predict and manage passenger flow through a new platform.
The airport, although already possessing strong forecasting capabilities, is partnering with Databricks to use its Data Intelligence Platform to fine tune its approach to data and AI, with tools for user education, data governance and security, and machine learning (ML) model training.
The airport, Europe’s largest, welcomes over 82 million passengers and handles over 460,000 flights each year, relies on over 26 terabytes (TB) of data to make critical real-time decisions including data on passenger numbers, flights, airlines, seasonal performance, as well as traffic and weather patterns.
“Databricks enables us to provide a more efficient and accurate forecast than we’ve ever been able to before,” said Andrew Isenman, Head of Technology, Cloud and Data at Heathrow. “Now, passengers and stakeholders get a greater level of service in a much more efficient airport.”
With the new platform the airport will begin to use AI and ML use cases — starting with its passenger flow forecasting – and plan predictive maintenance, cleaning and service interruptions during downtime to reduce costs and better avoid impacts on travellers.
The new platform will also assist to improve data governance, compute power, cross-team collaboration, certification capabilities, and model tracking and data sharing.
“Data-driven, accurate forecasting is a non-negotiable in the travel and hospitality industry — with thousands of daily flights totally dependent on this being done right,” said Michael Green, VP, Head of Northern Europe at Databricks. “With the [platform], Heathrow is able to understand future passenger volumes and plan accordingly, resulting in better service for passengers and a much more efficient operation.”
Image: Jyothi | Dreamstime.com
