Philadelphia Int’l Installs Biometric Facial Recognition at 25 Gates

Arora Engineers (Arora) was featured in Airport Improvement Magazine in an article entitled “Philadelphia International Installs Biometric Facial Recognition at 25 Gates.” The article discusses how Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) commissioned the installation of facial biometric technology at 25 boarding gates in Terminals A-East and A-West to help U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) process departing passengers on international flights safely and efficiently.

The facial biometrics process is designed to verify travelers’ identities by comparing a live photo to images that the traveler has already provided to the government, such as passport and visa photos.

Arora was awarded a Prime contract by the City of Philadelphia Division of Aviation to provide engineering, project management and construction phase services at PHL. Under this agreement, Arora provided project management support for the installation of biometrics technology at PHL.

The process began before the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, kicking off a comprehensive test run of three different systems. The PHL team took advantage of the time to complete more research during the beginning of the pandemic. Kalpesh Trivedi, CCM, Project Manager at Arora says, “We learned some good lessons throughout the process. The pause [starting in 2020] actually helped us prepare better.” For example, an important factor the team discovered was that overhead lighting makes a big difference. It has to be bright enough to capture clear images.

PHL launched the biometric boarding process in January of 2023, and as of early February, the first set of 10 gates are operational. The 15 remaining gates are expected to be online by April. To learn more about Arora’s scope of work on this project, click here.

To read the full article, click here.