Marisa Garcia Universal design is a thing of beauty, as Danish firm Marcus Pedersen demonstrates.
Its height-adaptable baggage drop solution which helps all passengers access the benefits of automated travel services.
The company’s height-adjustable Air.Go On bag-drop solution is as modern and convenient a digital baggage-drop solution as you’ll find in the market. But it was designed for optimum ergonomic use, adjusting the height of the machine so that it can easily be used by all passengers.
“Creating an ergonomically correct unit was incredibly important to us,” says Niels Marcus Pedersen, CEO of Marcus Pedersen Airport Interior Solutions. “When we started sketching the product, we placed it on the counter where you would normally put a retrofit bag drop. It was too low to be ergonomically correct for average users. So we tried taking it up higher, but then it was too high for small or seated persons, and (on days when the desk was being used for manned assistance) it was blocking the airline employee who sat there.”
The company wants to provide airports with a single baggage-drop solution that adjusts to the passenger’s needs, rather than trying to adjust the passenger to the ‘needs’ of a machine. Pedersen points out that having a separate baggage drop queues for persons who can’t reach higher machines is stigmatising when the machines could simply be designed to be easily used by all.
“We think that all passengers should be treated as equals, and the airports and airlines we’ve spoken to feel the same way,” Marcus Pedersen continues. “When we ask someone to use a different area and special equipment, the message we send is not a positive one.”
The Air.Go On baggage drop system can quickly be retrofit to existing service counters.
Marcus Pedersen has the advantage of being co-located at Aalborg airport, where the family-owned firm gets to live-test its design concepts, gauge customer response, and make desirable adjustments.
