Just in time for the yearly tragedy that is Thanksgiving travel, both Bush Intercontinental and Hobby airports have released a new online tool that measures average security wait times.
Featured on the front page of the Houston Airport System's Fly2Houston website, this innovative little system tool captures Bluetooth signals — presumably from those unfortunate souls standing in line — to assess how long it takes for travelers to get their shoeless feet through the security scanners and pat-downs.
As of Friday, the technology is fully operational at Intercontinental's eight main checkpoints and at Hobby's lone security line.
Developed by Georgia-based company Infax— which specializes in tech solutions for other bastions of waiting, like courthouses and mass transit hubs — the wait-time calculator is refreshed every 15 minutes with new data, displaying the results on Fly2Houston in the classic traffic light colors:
- Green: wait 10 minutes or less
- Yellow: wait between 11 and 15 minutes
- Red: wait 16 minutes or more
"This initiative allows us to be transparent in our operational efficiencies and provide the traveling public with a true snapshot of how much time they need to budget to be processed at any of our nine checkpoints in Houston," assistant director Jeff Bream of the Houston Airport System in a recent statement.
This Thanksgiving season, more than 1.3 million passengers are expected to travel through Houston's two airports.
Based on advanced booking information, Friday is projected to be Intercontinental's busiest day with more than 180,000 travelers. Hobby will peak on Monday with more than 17,000 passengers.
