Locating luggage trolleys in airports
Tracking and optimised management of 2,200 baggage trolleys at the Venice Airport with RTLS
Teamwork for an integrated project
SAVE S.p.A., which was founded in 1987, is the holding company of a Group which operates mainly in the management of airports, in particular in the development of infrastructures and the network of flights of the Venice-Treviso System, which in 2019 exceeded more than 14 million passengers between the two airports.
THE PARTNER
Present Group is active in the ICT market along the entire value chain of IT services. The technical and functional skills present within its organization allow the design, production and management of Solutions and Services in the ICT sector to support Digital Transformation with a large and integrated offer. The services provided cover the thematic areas of Business Solutions, Managed Services and Contact Interaction Services. With approximately 1,500 employees and a turnover in 2020 of more than 100 million euros, the Present Group has a geographical presence throughout Italy and main offices in Milan, Rome, Turin, Perugia, Bologna, Padova, and Naples.
Digital monitoring of trolleys to ensure constant availability and efficient recovery in a complex airport environment
Venice airport, the third largest in Italy in terms of turnover and the fourth largest for number of passengers, has 2,200 baggage trolleys which can be freely used inside the airport buildings and in the parking areas. Special teams operate within the airport with the task of recovering trolleys abandoned by the passengers in the departures zone and in the parking areas so as to constantly guarantee the availability of a sufficient number of trolleys in each of the 25 pick-up bays. This operation was carried out on the basis of visual control and without digital support or monitoring tools.
The requirement of the company was to be able to support this activity and make it more efficient by means of an adequate tool which was able to constantly monitor the number of trolleys available in each bay and localize the abandoned trolleys throughout the entire airport area in order to guide the search and facilitate the recovery.
The characteristics of the project area were extremely complex as it consisted of very diverse zones, indoor and outdoor, on various levels, with transit ramps between the levels, various types of interference, vehicles in transit, long covered corridors and open areas without the possibility of installing antennas or power supply. The requested accuracy was linked to the possibility of identifying the trolley once it was nearby: a tolerance of a few metres was therefore tolerated. However, a good accuracy was requested in identifying the number of trolleys present in each bay.
Trolley tracking via mesh network and distributed infrastructure
Ubiquicom and Present set up a solution for direct localization of the trolleys based on the Ubiquicom Locator platform and on activetags which used the potential of the mesh networks for transmitting the field data necessary for localization towards a network of gateways distributed over the entire area and connected to the localization server, guaranteeing, at the same time, reduced consumptions.
In order to support the localization, the area was equipped with an infrastructure of approximately 500 fixed tags with the dual function of supporting the communication flows towards the gateways and providing the references for the localization. The 2,200 trolleys were equipped with a fixed tag using a shell designed ad hoc and 25 gateways were installed in the area equipped with data SIMs and powered by the mains or by means of photovoltaic panels and storage batteries.
The 2,200 tags were configured to vary the period of communication depending on the status detected by the on-board movement sensors to guarantee reduction of the consumptions when the trolley is stationary and greater localization frequency during the use. An ad hoc Web-based supervision and control interface has also been developed with all the monitoring and analysis tools required by the project. Lastly, a mobile application was developed to support the maintenance of the trolley tags and the infrastructure of fixed tags as well as for searching for the position of a specific trolley.
Increased operational efficiency thanks to fleet monitoring and faster recoveries
Questions and insights
Gruppo SAVE is the Italian airport management group that operates Venice Marco Polo Airport (VCE), one of the busiest international airports in northern Italy handling millions of passengers annually.
The airport operates a large fleet of ground support equipment including over 2,200 baggage trolleys, luggage containers, tow tractors, vehicles, and other equipment that must be available at the right place and time for each aircraft turnaround.
Managing this fleet without real-time location visibility was a significant operational challenge: trolleys and containers frequently accumulated in the wrong areas, were unavailable when needed at aircraft stands, or required extensive manual searches by ground handling personnel before each departure.
Ubiquicom deployed its Locator RTLS platform at Venice Marco Polo Airport to provide real-time tracking of baggage trolleys, ground support equipment, and other airport assets across the entire airside and landside operational areas.
The system uses a combination of UWB positioning for high-accuracy indoor tracking within terminal areas and cargo warehouses, and GPS/GNSS coverage for outdoor apron zones, taxiways, and remote stands. Compact, weatherproof RTLS tags were installed on every item in the tracked fleet.
A real-time operations dashboard gave ground handling supervisors a live map view of the entire asset fleet, enabling instant identification of the nearest available trolley or piece of equipment for any task. Automated alerts notified supervisors when assets accumulated in restricted zones or had not been returned to designated staging areas.
Gruppo SAVE achieved significant operational improvements following the Ubiquicom RTLS deployment at Venice Airport. Real-time visibility into the location of over 2,200 baggage trolleys and other equipment eliminated the manual search time that had previously consumed ground handling personnel's time before each aircraft turnaround.
Trolley allocation became faster and more systematic, reducing the risk of departure delays caused by unavailable equipment. The system also provided utilization data that enabled fleet right-sizing analysis: managers could identify whether the total fleet size was appropriate for the operational demand, or whether certain categories of equipment were systematically over-ordered or underused.
This data-driven fleet management approach supports long-term cost optimization and investment planning.
Airport operations require tracking that seamlessly covers both indoor areas such as terminal baggage halls, cargo warehouses, and maintenance hangars, as well as large outdoor apron areas, remote aircraft stands, and ground service vehicle roads.
Ubiquicom achieves this through a hybrid positioning architecture. Inside covered structures, UWB or BLE anchors provide precise indoor positioning. Outside in open apron areas, GPS or GNSS receivers integrated into the RTLS tags continue tracking without any gap or manual transition.
The central Ubiquicom platform receives position data from both indoor and outdoor sources and presents them in a single unified real-time map based on the airport's actual site plan. This seamless indoor-outdoor continuity is essential for maintaining an uninterrupted chain of custody for ground support equipment throughout the full aircraft turnaround cycle.
Airport environments present unique challenges for RTLS deployment compared to standard industrial facilities.
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The operational area spans a mix of indoor and outdoor zones, often covering hundreds of thousands of square meters.
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Large metal structures including aircraft bodies, jet bridges, and service vehicles create complex RF reflection patterns that can degrade positioning accuracy for less robust technologies.
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Strict airside safety regulations require that any installed equipment is certified for use in potentially explosive atmospheres near refueling operations.
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The 24/7 nature of airport operations means that installation and maintenance must be carefully scheduled to avoid impacting live operations.
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Weather resistance is essential for all outdoor components.
Ubiquicom has addressed all of these requirements in the Gruppo SAVE deployment, demonstrating proven capability in one of Europe's most demanding airport environments.
Yes, the Ubiquicom platform provides comprehensive logging and reporting capabilities that support operational accountability, regulatory compliance, and performance management.
Every movement event for every tracked asset is timestamped and stored, creating a complete chain-of-custody record. Reports can be generated to show where specific assets were at any time, how long equipment spent in each area, whether service level agreements for equipment availability were met, and which turnarounds experienced equipment shortages. These reports support both internal performance management and any regulatory or contractual obligations related to ground handling quality standards.
Historical data is retained for configurable retention periods and can be exported for integration with airport operations management systems.
Yes, Ubiquicom's Locator platform is designed for integration with airport operations management systems through standard APIs and data exchange protocols.
Integration with Airport Operational Databases (AODB), Ground Handling Management Systems (GHMS), and Resource Management Systems (RMS) enables the airport to combine real-time asset location data with flight schedule information, resource allocation plans, and turnaround monitoring tools.
This integration layer enables the most powerful operational use cases, such as automatically alerting ground handlers when specific equipment types will be required at a particular stand based on the inbound flight schedule, giving them time to pre-position assets before the aircraft arrives.
Ubiquicom's team manages integration projects in collaboration with the airport's IT and operations teams.