NEC Display Solutions Client Installation Airport
OSLO AIRPORT GARDERMOEN
FACILITATING A CLEAR AND RELIABLE PASSENGER INFORMATION SYSTEM
NEC has been the main supplier of screens and projectors for Oslo Airport Gardermoen since 2005. With a proven record of providing the highest levels of reliability, passengers and staff at Norway’s largest and busiest airport bene!t from NEC displays delivering 24/7 digital information.
Oslo Airport Gardermoen is the Nordic region’s largest airport with direct routes to more than 110 Norwegian and international destinations, as well as 80 charter destinations. Gardermoen saw more than 21 million passengers pass through its concourses in 2011.
The Challenge
The terminal building of 148,000m2, houses a hectic environment that requires high quality, competence, service and availability from the service providers. Personnel work in challenging and busy environments and the passengers require clear and updated information in order to !nd the correct counter for check-in, the correct gate and trafic information such as changes, delays or cancellations.
The information systems must therefore provide information 24 hours a day without interruptions.
Before NEC became its trusted provider, Gardermoen used large TV screens as you would !nd in the domestic market to deliver information. The strain to which these screens were exposed meant that reliability was a huge issue and breakdowns commonplace. The costs involved in operation and maintenance were therefore disproportionately high. In 2005, when NEC presented its commercial grade Public Displays, built for durability and 24 hour operation with consistent and reliable operation, Gardermoen was assured of a far improved Total Cost of Ownership.
The NEC Solution
Speaking several years after the !rst NEC installation, Dag R. Foss-Hansen, section manager IT/FNT at Oslo Airport Gardermoen stated, “The operational reliability is very good. We were promised that the lifetime of this type of technology should be approximately 50,000 hours, something we were very pleased with. Time has shown that they last for twice as long. This exceeds all expectations”.“Today we are standardised on NEC and have 32”, 40” and 46” monitors over the entire area and projectors in all meeting rooms. We have a total of approximately 400 monitors that inform and update employees and passengers 24 hours a day”, continues Foss-Hansen.
Work is carried out in many different environments at Gardermoen. Everyone shares the need for running time on the monitors for quick access to correct information. In areas where baggage is transportedto and from the aeroplanes, a large challenge is the amount of dust and pollution. But even in this area there are few or no operational problems.
“The monitors are on 24/7 and have been so for nearly !ve years. Even if we have routines for cleaning and vacuuming, with so many people gathered in one concentrated area, dust will be a problem. The monitors cope with this without any issues. I have to say that I am very impressed with the quality NEC shows here”, says Foss-Hansen. All the monitors are operated and monitored via an operations centre where information on instability is immediately reported to Nagios.
“The operations system gives a good overview of all the monitors. If there is an error we are there quickly to solve the problem. As a rule the solution is a quick restart of the control that operates the FIDSsystem”, says Foss-Hansen.
The airport is placed under strict environmental requirements and it chooses IT equipment that ollute as little as possible. Suppliers are subjected to detailed speci!cations that must be approved. NEC has, among many other environmental advantages, a returns programme where recycling plays an important role.
“The environment is obviously something we have to take into consideration at Gardermoen. NEC ful!ls these requirements with low electricity consumption in their products and good routines for returns and recycling”, says Foss-Hansen.
The Result
“The cooperation with NEC functions very well and we are very pleased with everything from products to service, follow up and competence of the company and their dealers. Through our operations and competence centre Letis, we experience few or no problems”, says Foss-Hansen.
“We have, among other things, an operational contract with Torp airport in Sandefjord. The contract says that they are free to use other suppliers, something that they have tried. The result is that they have gone back to NEC. We are very pleased and will willingly continue the cooperation with NEC in the future”, concludes Foss-Hansen.
