The smart way of airport freight

At present, the construction of smart airports in various places is in full swing, and passenger transport has been further developed. While promoting the development of passenger transportation, the construction of smart airports should also focus on the rapid development of air cargo. The construction of a smart airport should combine customer transportation and freight transportation to achieve 'walking on two legs'.

Big logistics drives big industries. As a barometer of local economic development, air transportation is an important growth point for the development of regional economy and even global economy. In recent years, there have been a number of airports that have been developed and positioned with 'freight first', and the wisdom of freight transportation is of great significance.

Judging from the actual development of the smart airport, all regions are making full use of the existing Internet of Things technology to improve the smartness of the airport, but there are three problems: First, the smart construction focuses on passenger transportation, and the passenger transportation is far more intelligent It is higher than freight; second, it is based on a single technology in technology application, and it has not formed the complete IoT information technology chain required by smart airports; third, it has not kept pace with the development of technology in the operation and management of smart airports. In this regard, the author sums up his experience and proposes a road to smart construction of airport freight.

Form an information technology application chain

Essentially, there is no fundamental difference between the wisdom of freight and passenger transportation. The difference is that passenger transportation is mainly designed for passengers, while freight transportation is mainly for goods and mail.

The complete information technology mainly includes three levels: the bottom sensing technology, the middle layer network technology and the top big data technology and artificial intelligence.

Sensing technology is the foundation of the Internet of Everything in the future, and also the smart foundation of airport cargo. At present, mature airport cargoes are distributed with terminal sensing technologies such as PDA terminal systems, radio frequency identification, bayonet release systems, and GPS information systems. Taking Henan Zhengzhou Airport as an example, the terminal uses the terminal sensing system to track the entire movement of cargo from truck to aircraft, so as to obtain real-time data of freight transportation, which not only improves the efficiency of cargo entering and leaving the airport, but also gives full play to In addition to its comprehensive transportation advantages, it has laid the technical foundation for multimodal transportation.

Network technology is the channel foundation for data transmission and a smart channel for airport freight. The cargo data acquired by the sensor terminal must be transmitted through the network, and the speed and width of the network transmission directly determine the timeliness of the data acquisition. In the era of big data, huge amounts of data need to be transmitted in real time every day. Just as there are more cars on the road that can cause congestion, network channels can also be congested due to the huge amount of data. Once handled badly, it will cause the network to collapse. The data types involved in smart freight construction are diverse and huge, which puts forward higher standards and requirements for network transmission.

In addition, another important issue of data transmission is security, including enhancing the confidentiality of data transmission and reducing the damage of network viruses. In order to ensure network security, at present airports generally adopt the method of self-built internal LAN in production systems to cut off their connection with the Internet. This closed network can guarantee the security of data transmission to the greatest extent, but it cannot meet the needs of efficient interaction of massive data. Therefore, in the future, the airport will work with large network operators and communication equipment manufacturers to formulate targeted network application solutions for different application scenarios. For example, make full use of network virtualization technology to create a virtual isolation space, so that different teams or departments can maintain their own networks. At the same time, virtual segments on the network are used to create a 'network container', which separates the device and the user, and prevents adverse factors from spreading on the network.

Big data technology is the key to discovering the value of data, and it is also the intelligent core of airport freight. It is necessary to use big data technology to collect the massive and complex data sensed in the cloud for integration, analysis, sharing, and prediction, and use artificial intelligence to form a self-feedback circulation system, and finally achieve the purpose of self-learning, self-thinking, and self-action.

Adhere to market orientation and systematic thinking

Adhere to the market-oriented guidance should fully request technology from the market, and then promote the transformation of internal management concepts. The demand for technology from the market is introduced and applied in stages according to the law of technology market development. From a pure technical point of view, the development logic of smart technology should be from sensor technology to network technology, and then to the final big data technology. The three technologies are developed in sequence, promoting the formation of a smart technology system. However, from the actual situation of market development, the most mature development is big data technology, followed by network technology and sensor technology. Technology can never go alone, and any technological development must be closely integrated with market demand. The construction of smart freight should follow the law of technological development, according to the maturity of technology in the market, mature one, introduce one, and develop one.

While introducing technology, it is necessary to actively change the management concept, restructure the organization management system with advanced information technology, rebuild the product structure system, reshape the business model and profit model, improve the corporate governance system, and truly adapt to management to bring technology. The changes are adapted to the changes in the times from the concept.

It is not enough to rely solely on technology or management for the construction of smart freight. Only by combining technology-induced changes with changes in management thinking can we fundamentally promote smart construction.

The so-called systematic thinking refers to the top-level design of smart freight transportation construction, drawing the blueprint of smart freight transportation construction and forming an implementation path. In the early stage of the overall planning and construction of the airport, the planning of smart freight should be included; in the early stage of the planning and construction of the cargo station, the construction of information should be included. At the same time, the planning and construction of the entire freight transportation should be carried out around advanced information technology, and it cannot follow the old road of first building and then modifying.

Integration into smart city construction

According to incomplete statistics, my country currently has close to 600 smart city pilots, and provincial and municipal governments have successively issued smart city construction plans. As an important infrastructure of the city, the airport is an important part of the smart city system and an important execution unit of smart city construction. This requires that the construction of smart freight at the airport must be accurately connected to the smart city system, so that smart freight can exert its maximum effect.

In the process of smart freight construction, Zhengzhou Airport has built a multi-modal transportation information platform to achieve seamless connection between air transportation and other transportation methods in the city, thus incorporating the construction of smart freight into the transportation system of smart cities.

In the future, Zhengzhou Airport Freight Company will use multimodal transport as the starting point, and actively participate in the construction of smart Zhengzhou by using its affiliated multimodal transport company, and promote the accurate docking of smart freight and smart Zhengzhou at Zhengzhou Airport, and ultimately form a harmonious smart ecosystem.