Saudi airports kick off world’s largest passenger flow tech rollout

Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) and airport operator MATARAT are rolling out an advanced LiDAR and passenger flow management solution across the country’s 27 airports—the world’s largest implementation of its kind—as part of the Kingdom’s vision to lead the region in airport technology and innovation.

SAMI Advanced Electronics, a leading Saudi ICT provider, has partnered with DTP to deliver the solution, which uses Veovo’s Queue and Flow Management system alongside DTP’s tNexus smart mobile platform. This collaboration provides insights into passenger movement, dwell times, and queuing patterns within terminals. With millions of travellers passing through Saudi airports each year, this system will help GACA and MATARAT proactively address bottlenecks in critical areas such as check-in, immigration, security, and transfer zones, thus reducing delays and enhancing the passenger experience.

Abdulaziz Aldahmash, Executive Vice President for Quality and Customer Experience at GACA, commented: “This is a transformative initiative that will redefine the passenger experience at Saudi Arabia’s airports: a state-of-the-art queue management system across all Saudi airports. This isn’t just about convenience, it’s about transparency and efficiency. GACA, the airports’ leaders and all the stakeholders can now monitor operations, optimise resources, and ensure fair service across all airports.”

Veovo’s People Flow and Queue Management solution analyses people’s movement using data from LiDAR sensors, stereo cameras, and WiFi/BLE infrastructure. This sensor-agnostic approach was critical for a project of this size, ensuring scalability and flexibility to meet the demands of varying airport layouts and architecture.   DTP then delivers this insight to all stakeholders, including airport employees and officials, via its tNexus Airport View mobile application, which provides real-time metrics, alerts, and flight information.

Together, the partners transform queue management by measuring and predicting wait times while delivering broader processing insights for a more accurate assessment of passenger flow.

This deeper insight allows for proactive action to prevent congestion, while detailed productivity analysis supports ongoing performance improvement. The solution also helps operators plan capacity by recommending the optimal number of processing lines based on real-time and forecasted passenger flow. Designed for multi-airport and multi-terminal use, it ensures consistent, efficient operations across all 27 airports.

The solution is being rolled out to all airports in a phased approach over the next 18 months, with technology already installed at Jeddah and Riyadh airports.