DALLAS—DFW International Airport’s future could include “self-service” security checkpoints—a program the Transportation Security Administration is piloting in Las Vegas next year.
Construction of such a screening system is scheduled to begin in January at Harry Reid International Airport, one of the nation’s busiest airports with 52.6 million travelers last year, including many headed to Vegas’ famed casino and entertainment strip.
“It’s a self-service screening concept that’s just being operationally tested,” said TSA spokesman R. Carter Langston. “When it is constructed, it will be operationally tested at Las Vegas. If it’s determined to be a feasible technology, it may be deployed to other airports including DFW but those those decisions and deployments are years away.”
DFW Airport is the second busiest airport in the U.S., with 73.4 million travelers passing through last year.
The Department of Homeland Security has a program called “Screening at Speed,” which looks at the future of security and reduces wait times. The program is developing technologies that would scan walking passengers, acquire information through the garments they wear and detect an even wider range of prohibited items, even if they are concealed. The program would allow PreCheck passengers to complete the process with minimal involvement from TSA 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,” said John Fortune, manager of the Screening at Speed Program, in a statement. “Travelers will use passenger and carry-on screening systems at individual consoles or screening lanes themselves, reducing the number of pat-downs and bag inspections (TSA officers) need to perform and freeing their time to be reallocated to the busier aspects of screening operations.”
In 2021, the program created a concept design and prototype. Later that year, four contracts were awarded to three companies: Micro-X of Federal Way, Washington; Vanderlande Industries Inc. of Marietta, Georgia; and Voxel Radar of San Francisco. The firms are developing concepts and prototypes.
Micro-X is looking at a pod-based design that would provide feedback to the passenger as needed. The individual screening consoles in development would have a compact carry-on screening system and a flat panel passenger screening capability.
Vandelande has a prototype called the PAX MX2, which combines an automated screening lane carry-on bag system with TSA’s current equipment to make four stations in one checkpoint lane.
Voxel Radal is creating in-motion panel sensors to line walls or curved surfaces, screening passengers while they remove belongings or walk through a checkpoint.
It’s a “futuristic” concept, Langston said. Typically, he said, when TSA tests new technologies, it starts with PreCheck members.
“Passengers would basically walk through an area and they would not even necessarily realize that they’ve been screened for security before boarding a flight,” Langston said.
TSA has been pushing out new technologies in the last year to keep up with the influx of travelers. In March, TSA chief David Pekoske reiterated that the agency wants to use technology to reduce the number of screening officers in checkpoints and speed up travel processes.
“It’s critically important that this system has as little friction as it possibly can, while we provide for safety and security,” Pekoske said at South by Southwest in March.
