In preparation for the 2016 Summer Olympics, Rio de Janeiro’s Galeão International Airport deploys beacons and its RIOgaleão app.
Seeking to find the fastest way to the Olympics? Now travelers going to Brazil for the worldwide competitions can get directions via beacons.
The RIOgaleão Airport deployed 3,000 beacons across its 100,000-square-meter building, says Alexandre Villeroy, chief information officer at RIOgaleão Airport. The beacons work in conjunction with the mobile app to give travelers turn-by-turn directions around the airport.
A traveler can pull up the map in the airport app and type in a destination, such as Starbucks, or his flight number, and the app will show the traveler on the map the best path to take to get to his destination and list out directions.
Besides indoor navigation, other features in the app include the ability to pay for airport parking, track flight status, a place to provide airport feedback, and integration with Google maps to look up how long it will take to get to the airport and then receive directions.
While the Olympics spurred the airport to deploy this technology, RIOgaleão plans to keep the system in place afterward as well, Villeroy says.
