Is the second BP scan at T5 Fast Track Security a stats scam?
 

After arriving off a European flight on Saturday I decided to forgo connections and use the e-Passport gates and head up to departures. This meant going through the "new" Fast Track security lanes at T5 South. You scan your BP for entry and about 5m after that there is another (normally optional) BP scanner. It takes around 5 seconds to walk between the entry gate and this scanner.

The chap here gestured for me to scan my BP at this reader. I told him I didn't really want to do that because I know they are just for passenger tracking purposes. It got me thinking, are HAL trying to pull a scam here? What will this data actually show? It takes 5 seconds to walk 5m to the second scanner? Wow. It certainly doesn't take 5 seconds to get through security.

In fact, as per my luck after unpacking my stuff up the infamous scanning chair was empty. Nothing moved for 5 minutes. Something I face consistently at North "Fast Track" when connecting. Even there the whole BP thing is a scam. They want you to scan the BP (but I have never been asked to do it) to gather data on how long it took you to get between the scan downstairs and upstairs to security. But what does it really show? Why not have the completely voluntarily scan AFTER security to truly show the picture of how long it takes. The figures are completely skewed with the current system in place because inevitably after that data capture the queue doesn't move, minutes are wasted that are not being recorded skewing the overall picture.

I have not looked into this in any great depth but I can see no other way that HAL can be tracking the time taken for security except for these two data captures. It's years since they used to hand out bits of coloured paper which tracked the time taken and even then it was collected after security.

Of course, nothing is quite as ridiculous as the current set up at new Fast Track. All passengers take only 5 seconds and data capture is encouraged, practically enforced by the way I was asked. What else can the data represent? Am I missing something?

They had disabled the red button on one of the feedback machines once when I went through. Last time I pressed red once for each of the minutes I was kept waiting.

Yes

That security is fast when it isn't.

What else would you expect from Hideous Airport Limited?

HAL, making BA customer service look good since 2012.

The real culprit here is the CAA, which regulates HAL and sets service standards. The security queuing target is based on the time taken from entering the security area to getting to the baggage conveyor ahead of the X-Ray. The CAA has rejected proposals from various parties to set targets which measure the total time to pass through security, on the questionable grounds that the CAA has no jurisdiction on the security checks themselves (which are of course based on criteria set by the DfT).

Clearly the CAA's approach makes no sense, and it is entirely inconsistent with the CAA's statutory duty to prioritise the interests of passengers. As I have suggested on previous posts, please complain to the Economic Regulation Group of the CAA.

If they measured the time to go through the security check, the hard working last line of defence people may feel pressured to speed up and not ensure that the planes are kept free of people who will do us harm. AI'm quite happy for them to spend 30 minutes scanning my bag every time I go through, out of an abundance of caution -- surely 30 minutes of your time is worth it to stop the jihadiis from bringing nail cutters on board? Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children!

I will fire off a missive to Margaret Hodge and see what the response is. She is good at replying to Joe Public.

It should not be beyond the wit of man to ensure that security standards are met AND passengers are processed speedily. It just needs a more enlightened approach to the CAA's targets, such that HAL sees that it's in its own interest to ensure adequate staffing, rostering and process design.

Other airports manage to do it - it isn't rocket science.

Indeed. How can they advocate expanding LHR (aided by those silly made up stats adverts) when they can't even get the basics right of processing pax. It would be as bad as awarding more Gov contracts to G4S. Oh wait...

When they put the second BP scanner at the exit to security I'll use it and help them collect truthful information rather than the current lies.

I don't use it. I agree it's a scam.

I was told, by someone who knows the fuller story, that the secondary scanner, which is indeed a statistical collection service (so measuring the time from entry gate to reaching the security trays), came about as a result of some challenge from the CAA over a previous, no longer used, statistical collection method. This was one measure of one passenger every 15 minutes. The CAA didn't insist on them but HAL agreed to put them in to assist with the widespread disbelief that the first statistical process engendered.

I tend not to bother. Unless I've been kept waiting.... In which you should do just before slipping through the arch.

You are (as always) correct. Neither the airlines nor the CAA believed HAL's method of calculating queuing times, which were based on highly questionable sample-based surveys that were easily manipulable. For some time now the CAA has been pressing HAL to install an automated system that is less open to fiddling.

Of course, none of this addresses the key point that the security queuing stats are based on only one element of the overall security process, namely the time to get to the start of the security check (ie the roller bed).

Recently it's become flawed at both ends of the "measurement", as you can now be faced with a lengthy queue to get to the first scanner at conformance, as well as having to queue for the actual screening after the second scanner.

If you get pulled for secondary, that's just the icing on the (fake) cake.