New baggage screening system from Morpho Detection evaluated
is a much more involved process.”
As part of a potential nationwide rollout of the machines, any issues could have repercussions beyond San Jose. Morpho has worked with the TSA to ensure that the equipment would meet the agency’s airport certification requirements, says Morpho’s Bloomfield.
The new screening system, dubbed the CTX 9800 DSi, was created by the Newark, California, security company formerly known as GE Homeland Protection Inc. and now part of privately held Safran Group (“GE sells its Homeland Protection business to Safran for $580 million,” 27 April 2009 HSNW). The company began developing the machine four years ago and the first units were delivered early this year.
The eight CTX 9800 machines deployed so far, which cost about $1.5 million each, are similar to medical CT scanners, says Bloomfield. When a passenger checks in a bag at the ticket counter, an airline representative places it on a conveyer belt where it travels to a detection machine. Unlike most baggage-screening systems that create two-dimensional images of objects inside luggage, these machines create three-dimensional images that can be digitally manipulated by personnel when a bag is deemed to be suspicious. The machines also use advanced software to detect suspicious items, says Bloomfield.
The technology reduces reliance on human observation and interaction with the bags, say Morpho executives. For the majority of bags, employee contact is only required when a piece of luggage is placed on or taken off the conveyer belt, in contrast to older systems that require staff to manually feed each piece of baggage through the detector.
As a result, where San Jose once used 28 machines to process 1,800 bags an hour, the new system will be able to process the same number of bags using eight machines and require fewer employees to supervise the process, says Vossbrink. The TSA says it is too soon to know what effect the system would have on staffing needs.
Baca writes that the new baggage-screening system are part of a $1.3 billion renovation aimed in part at reducing congestion at the airport. To implement the new baggage-screening system, the airport received a $20.6 million grant from the TSA and $20.9 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which together covered about 90 percent of the costs. The TSA’s Kimball says it chose San Jose for the pilot program based on an evaluation of its “pre-existing plans, airport readiness, operational suitability and risk.”
The TSA expects to decide later this year whether to move forward with the system.
