Case Study

Predictive analytics and business intelligence

Target Reply, the Reply Group company that specialises in implementing solutions involving big data and advanced analytics, set up a big data analytics platform for Aeroporti di Roma that manages and integrates all the information to understand the behaviour and needs of the passenger.

#analytics
#business intelligence

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Scenario

The ADR Group (Aeroporti di Roma S.p.A.) has embarked upon a process of transforming its business intelligence architecture. Target Reply collaborated with the airport management company to help it achieve the main objective: that of supplementing its current SAP BO-based reporting platform with an advanced data visualisation tool and a big data-type solution for storing and using its passenger flow data.

Solution

Target Reply, the Reply Group company that specialises in implementing solutions involving big data and advanced analytics, set up a big data analytics platform for ADR that manages and integrates all the information to understand the behaviour and needs of the passenger. Data such as the services offered to the passenger during the booking and travel phases, information on parking, check-in, security, shopping, operations boarding, public transport and car rental – by analyzing everything the operational choice is set in the decision-making processes with a view to continuous improvement of the services offered to passengers.

With the aid of this big data analytics-based solution, sets of data were cross-referenced with one another using statistical algorithms so that the Wi-Fi records could be correlated with flights in order to differentiate departing passengers from those arriving. This allowed ADR to analyse – in full compliance with GDPR regulations – the routes taken by arriving and departing passengers along with their behaviour patterns and thereby identify the zones that are subject to the highest density and transit levels within the terminals. The technological solution has therefore succeeded in analysing the entire route taken by passengers inside ADR’s airports.

A new system for data visualization

The new system of data visualization and analysis of Big Data has allowed, first of all, the operational optimization of airport processes by analyzing the density of passengers in the various areas defined inside the terminals. This information is also useful for providing innovative services that significantly improve the airport experience of travelers.

Secondly, it is now possible to anonymously know which shops are most visited and to better understand the behaviour of travelers from the point of view of food and retail, to identify the most effective communication and advertising points, through the calculation of new KPIs, as well as the timely monitoring of the quality levels of services provided in the Roman airports and the quality levels perceived by passengers. This was made possible by:

  • the integration between the commercial information of the shops and the number of passengers by destination and by boarding area, monitoring the performance trend with new dashboards and KPIs. the analysis of marketing according to the times of stationing of the passengers inside the commercial zones;

  • verification of the quality of the main airport operators functioning at the airport and monitoring the performance of the shops operating at the airport; the preparation of appropriate quality KPIs, to monitor and improve, for example, the punctuality and use of airport infrastructures.

The big data platform

The added value offered by Target Reply lies in its ability to implement its big data analytics platform in conjunction with Cloudera as a data lake, with Talend as an ingestion and data governance engine, and with Qlik Sense and Qlik GeoAnalytics as tools for analysing geo-tagged data and findings on airport maps, thanks to the integration of Qlik GeoAnalytics with the ADR Group’s GIS system (ESRI). This is one of the first projects at European level that is genuinely able to bring together all these different software applications.

The biggest challenge was being able to manage and analyse a significant amount of data. The data involved included 25 million records every day (almost 1 gigabyte per day) covering a historical period of two years; ad hoc airport maps; a high number of points of interest (POIs) to be mapped; and the cross-referencing of the data thus collected with the flight-related data, all in order to determine the departures and arrivals involved and to analyse the associated passenger flows.

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Aeroporti di Roma, company of the Atlantia Group, manages and develops the airports of Rome Fiumicino and Ciampino and carries out other activities connected with and complementary to airport management. Fiumicino operates through two passenger terminals. It is dedicated to business and leisure customers on national, international and intercontinental routes; Ciampino is mainly used by low cost airlines, by express couriers and by General Aviation activities. In 2018 ADR registered, as an airport system, 48.8 million passengers with over 230 destinations worldwide reachable from Rome, thanks to the approximately 100 airlines operating at the two airports. In 2017, according to the official Skytrax certification, Fiumicino is the airport that has improved its services all over the world. This award is added to the award given to him by Airport Council International as the most appreciated airport in Europe by passengers, between hubs with more than 40 millions passengers, and the "Best Airport Award" 2018 awarded to the Roman airport during the annual Assembly of the Airport Council International Europe.

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Target Reply is the Reply Group company that specialises in implementing solutions involving big data and advanced analytics. Target Reply supports organisations in identifying their needs for solution design and implementation by using technologies for data integration, data modelling and predictive analysis. In the process, it utilises the most innovative tools available in the business discovery and big data fields. Target Reply has gained significant experience of working with Italy’s major business concerns and is able to operate in all key markets, including telecoms, finance and manufacturing.