Fast-moving Baggage in the Belly of the Dragon

Siemens is currently building one of the world’s most modern baggage conveyance systems in the new terminal at Beijing Capital International Airport. The facility, which will be able to sort and transport more than 19,000 pieces of luggage per hour, features a high-speed segment that moves baggage at a speed of 11 meters per second. It will thus take the baggage transport system less than 25 minutes to move a piece of luggage from a check-in counter to the furthest-parked airplane. The facility will go into operation in the spring of 2008, which means it will already be in place when the Olympic Games begin in August.

The new terminal will make Beijing Capital one of the world’s biggest airports, enabling it to move 60 million passengers and 1.8 million tons of freight per year, while accommodating 500,000 aircraft. The architecture at the facility is also majestic, as the complex has the appearance of a mythical Chinese dragon. The "head" of the dragon houses the entrance hall, which will contain a total of 330 check-in counters and the domestic terminal. A special train will transport passengers through the "torso" of the dragon to the international terminal located at the back.

Although passengers will never see it, the baggage transport system being built by Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services (I&S) in the terminal catacombs will be an indispensable part of the facility’s ability to process up two planes per minute. Consisting of around 50 kilometers of conveyors, and with a top speed of 40 kilometers per hour, the system will be one of the largest and fastest in the world. Luggage will race through a 2.5-kilometer tunnel connecting the domestic and international terminals, literally passing beneath the feet of passengers. To ensure that the baggage pieces don’t fall off the belt while moving along at such high speeds, the system will transport them in boxcars equipped with RFID chips. The chips will be programmed with data on owners and destinations in just fractions of a second before the cars are sent speeding through the system to the appropriate terminal.

Siemens has extensively tested the system software at one of the most sophisticated baggage transport facilities in Germany – the Siemens Airport Center in Fürth, which serves as a simulation airport for the company. The tests enabled Siemens experts to minimize the risk of system failure before installation in Beijing. Their success here means that initial approval of the baggage transport facility by Beijing Capital International Airport will take place in July.