How specialised signage and lighting solutions can improve airport efficiency
How specialized signage and lighting solutions can improve airport efficiency
Like any business, airports should always strive to operate as efficiently as possible. The more passengers you can process every hour, and the more customers your concessions can serve, the more revenue you will generate. Ensuring that you have the right lighting and signage in place is an essential part of maximising efficiency. Here are just some of the ways it can help.
Improving the efficiency of passenger flow
Maintaining a steady flow of foot traffic through an airport is essential for maintaining operational effectiveness. If passengers or staff can’t navigate your airport easily, your operations will suffer as a result. Clear signage is the simplest but most effective way of ensuring that everyone in your airport can find what they need and navigate your terminals. Even simple signage such as arrows to indicate the intended direction of traffic can make a big difference to the way that everyone moves. Visual aids like these are effective because they can overcome any language barriers that might prevent passengers or staff from being able to read other types of signage.
Highlighting obstacles, obstructions, and off-limits zones
Like any other business, airports have an obligation to ensure all their users, staff, and visitors stay safe. Clear signage to indicate the existence and position of obstacles is an important component of this. In addition to the usual signs to indicate wet floors and trip hazards, airports also contain some more unique examples of hazardous areas. There are also numerous parts of the airport that you want to prevent visitors from inadvertently wandering into; you don’t want a hapless pedestrian accidentally straying onto the tarmac or potentially breaching a sensitive security area.
Of course, lighting and signage also have a key role to play in ensuring that vehicles can navigate your airport safely as well as people. Runways need to be clearly lit, as do any nearby access roads. You don’t want anyone or anything to stray too close to sensitive areas; this can result in a serious disruption to services.
Queue management
In any area of your airport where queues are likely to form, clear signage showing people where they need to queue prevents confusion and keeps traffic flowing. Not only does this ensure you can process passengers effectively at a steady rate, but it also prevents frustration. When queuing instructions are unclear, passengers end up wasting their time queueing for the wrong thing. Once they realise their mistake, they then need to spend more time finding and joining the correct queue. Clear guidance signage prevents these situations from arising.
Highlighting concessions and important areas
Most airports do more than just loading and unloading passengers from aircraft. As well as boutiques selling duty-free alcohol and tobacco, many airports also contain restaurants and fast food outlets, bookshops, and various other types of concessions. Airport operators naturally want passengers to spend money in these outlets; they are an important revenue stream for many airports. Clearly highlighting what’s available and where by using prominent signage will ensure that as many people as possible can find and use these outlets.
These are just some of the ways that specialised lighting and signage can benefit airports. Ensuring everything in your airport is properly signposted and clearly marked will improve your passengers’ experience while also ensuring operational efficiency. Installing specialised lighting and signage is the simplest way of achieving this.