by Mia Taylor
Last updated: 3:55 PM ET, Wed December 6, 2023
As part of its ongoing effort to increase efficiency, TSA is rolling out a new prototype for passenger self-service screening that can be used by PreCheck passengers.
The new system, which will first be launched at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas in January, allows passengers to navigate through screening with minimal to no assistance from transportation security officers.
“Like self-ordering kiosks at fast food and sit-down restaurants, self-service screening allows passengers in the Trusted Traveler Program to complete the security screening process on their own,” Screening at Speed Program Manager Dr. John Fortune said in a statement issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Travelers will use the new passenger and carry-on screening system at individual consoles or screening lanes, Fortune explained. The new system will help reduce the number of pat-downs and bag inspections that need to be performed by security personnel, freeing security officers to address other tasks.
Transportation security staff from the airport have already been trained on how to operate the new system and help travelers navigate the high-tech self-service screening process.
The prototype test in Las Vegas is part of a larger TSA effort to update screening technology throughout the country’s airports with more high-tech options that provide a smoother and quicker process.
A rendering of a self-service passenger screening design created by Vanderlande. TSA is working with Vanderlande and other companies to update passenger screening technology. (Photo Credit: Photo courtesy Vanderlande)
The future of air travel screening
A variety of experts have come together to develop new airport screening technology for airports around the country, according to a recently issued news release from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
That effort includes TSA’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) and its Transportation Security Laboratory (TSL), which have partnered with the TSA Innovation Task Force (ITF).
The joint effort is focused on increasing security effectiveness, while also reducing checkpoint wait times. The new technology will also keep travelers and security officers safer, said Fortune, by minimizing person-to-person contact and reducing the number of bags officers have to pick up and move.
In 2021, contracts were awarded to three companies to develop self-screening concepts, prototypes, and hardware that would enable “new screening paradigms.”
One of those companies, Micro-X, is developing a pod-based design for passengers that includes individual screening consoles for passengers. The system provides feedback to passengers about whether additional screening is needed.
The second contracted company, Voxel Radar of San Francisco, is working on developing in-motion panel sensors that would line walls or curved surfaces, allowing passengers to be screened in near real-time while removing belongings, or potentially even as they walk through a checkpoint.
The third company, Vanderlande Industries, based in Marietta, Georgia, is combining an Automated Screening Lane carry-on bag conveyance system with new and existing transportation security equipment to create four integrated stations for one checkpoint lane. Each station includes a video monitor with multi-step instructions and a help button that connects to a live transportation security agent for assistance as needed.
This last prototype also includes a screening portal with automated entry and exit doors. Once travelers successfully pass screening, the automatic exit door opens and ushers the passengers out to gather their personal belongings and head to their flights.
It is the Vanderlande self-service screening prototype that is being rolled out in Las Vegas in January.
In December, Micro-X will begin a multi-month demonstration and data
collection of its small-size CT X-ray system at TSL in Atlantic City,
New Jersey. Test engineers will collect screening images to validate the
system’s performance and assist with future algorithm development.
“We are very excited to see how far these capabilities have come in a relatively short amount of time,” Christina Peach, branch manager for the TSA ITF, said in a statement. “The airport security experience that we’ve all come to know could soon look and feel a lot different—in a very good way—for both passengers and TSOs.”
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