Amorph Systems is delighted to announce the start of their EU-funded project “AERFOR” at 1st of November 2016 which is granted within Horizon 2020 SME Instrument phase 2.  Horizon 2020 is the biggest EU programme for research & innovation with 80 billion Euro spent between 2014 – 2020. This flagship programme of the EU aims to bring innovative ideas from lab to market to ensure global competiveness. Especially through a dedicated SME instrument, Horizon 2020 funds high-potential innovation, which offers seamless business innovation support under the section Societal Challenges and the specific part Leadership in Enabling and Industrial Technologies (LEITs).

Selection of Excellence

At the call Amorph Systems participated there have been lots of companies sending their ideas and businesses how to improve within the variety of different areas offered by the EU to support. The acceptance criteria were high, but Amorph Systems managed to be under the 5%, or within the 48 out of 969 companies, that have been selected. The Horizon2020 commission highlighted especially the excellent preparation and foreseen impact of the innovation provided by Amorph Systems on the European market towards global challenges.

The idea of AERFOR  – Advanced Forecasting System for Proactive Airport Passenger Flow Management

Airports, especially in Europe, are facing a common problem of increasing passenger numbers versus limited space and capacity. In the long term, new infrastructure must be built to cover this demand. Until a new building is up and running it takes years’ where the existing capacity should be used as efficient as possible. This requires smart and innovative approaches which enhance of operating on the highest possible productivity.

During the last years, the engineers at Amorph Systems developed the innovative software product AMORPH.aero. For airport operators, the AMORPH.aero software continuously forecasts passenger flows in airport buildings for a certain period (24 hours forecast in a rolling mode every 3 minutes). The system has been developed for the reference customer FRAPORT and is very successfully implemented in the large airport of Frankfurt since summer 2011. Because of the great success of AMORPH.aero at Frankfurt airport and very positive feedback from several big international airports, AMORPH.aero shall now be further developed to a fully featured standard software product and established successfully into the European and International market.

AERFOR Phase 1 – Feasibility Study

Therefore, as a first step, during timeframe from October 2014 until February 2015, Amorph Systems conducted a feasibility study including a business plan for AMORPH.aero that clearly defines the conditions, strategy and measurements for the going-to-market and business development.

During the creation of the feasibility study for AMORPH.aero a lot of know-how about the market and business situation as well as the requirements according to forecasting and prediction solutions within airports were collected and thus a sound technical concept and business plan have been created.

Aerfor Phase 2 – Preparation for Commercialisation

The next step consists in realizing this business plan and bring the AMORPH.aero solution successfully to the European and international market. Especially winning pilot customers will be one of the most important targets to be reached within the next 2 years.

Benefits for Airports

As part of the implementation at a customer side there have been identified several benefits, which lead to a monetary and quality improvements:

  • Accurate and always updated information of future passenger flows in the entire airport to prevent future problems. This information can be used for the reduction of waiting times at check points by means of active interventions (e.g. flight gate changes, bus gate changes, active re-routing of passengers through changes in route indications, etc.).
  • Optimization of resource capacities (e.g. personnel at process points) and thereby significant cost savings.
  • Better use of available resources and by that the possibility to reduce, to delay or to completely avoid investments in infrastructure (e.g. omit construction measures).
  • Fast and right-on time plan adjustments in case of flight delays or other disturbances in the airport operation.
  • Significant increase of customer satisfaction through the possibility of proactive control of passenger flows and avoidance of queuing at service points.
  • Increase of retail sales through “relaxed” passengers and active control of passenger movements.

The utilization at airports depends strongly on the internal procedures with other stakeholders like Federal police and security companies. In general there is a rising demand to interact within Airport Operational Control Centres (AOCC) between all relevant parties. Therefore, it is strongly necessary to work on common data for planning and operational decision making.

Based on our innovative approach to support the interactive decision process at airports, we are proud to be part of the European framework for research & innovation to make Europe smarter to ensure European companies deliver first class technology to the world.

If you want to learn more about our AERFOR project, please don´t hesitate to get in touch with us.