Sunday, May 6, 2012

Right of Way Rules...on the Baggage Carousel

Leave it to the Germans!  It's well known how important their cars are to them, as well as their rather arcane right-of-way rules on the road.  But now they've come up with a way to safeguard another important piece of property using similar ideas: luggage.
At the Munich airport, the baggage carousels appear, at first glance, to be just like any others that you'd encounter at any large airport.  But there is a difference.  Here there are small electronic sensors which monitor bags as they head down the arrival "chute" before dropping onto the oval carousel itself.  When the sensor detects that a bag is already moving counter-clockwise on the carousel as a second bag approaches on the chute, ready to be plopped down on top of the other bag, it actually halts the incoming bag temporarily, putting it in a holding pattern until such time as there is a sufficient gap on the carousel between pieces of luggage to allow the new bag to drop safely without touching any other, earlier-arrived bag.  In effect, the rule of the road is that a bag already on the carousel has the automatic right-of-way over any new bags attempting to enter the "carriageway" from the left.  Just like on the roads.
Amazing...

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