The Department of Homeland Security announces that "Screening at Speed" will be available this month at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, testing out letting passengers keep their shoes (and everything else) on. The technology was previously tested at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, D.C. in March 2023.
The Screening at Speed (SaS) technology lets passengers be scanned while they’re walking. It can penetrate through garments and detect concealed items. However, it’s only for TSA Precheck passengers, who can already keep their shoes, belts and coats on, so it’s unclear how this improves things except that TSA agents will now be minimally involved. Perhaps the best outcome is that the process will avoid false alarms that lead to pat-downs, which many people understandably find intrusive.
While three different models are currently available for this SaS screening, the Vanderlande model will be put in place in Las Vegas this month. The PAX MX2 prototype and a new carry-on bag conveyance system work with existing equipment. It creates four stations for each checkpoint lane, hopefully speeding things up. Each station has a video monitor giving passengers instructions on how to use it (and there’s a button to press to get a live TSA agent if you’re confused). Doors automatically close behind you and open at the exit end, where you gather your bags and move on.
However, if you don’t pass your screening because you left something questionable in your pockets, the monitor shows you an image of where the item is on your body. The entry door opens up again so you can retreat, remove the item, and start over.
The screening will be combined with other technologies such as wide-area surveillance, airport risk assessment modeling (hmmm), high-speed data processing, and risk-based screening (again, hmmm). The hope is that if this works well to screen passengers rapidly, the technology can be used for sports arenas, concert venues, and mass transit.