I have for many years been wondering about how many times a traveler using airplanes as the means of transport, between A and B “share” information to populate metadata databases. In this post I’m going to give some examples of digital data left behind on a normal Intercontinental flight between Norway and The United States of America,
In Norway there are more and more electric cars like the i3 from BMW. Looking into these kind of cars one will see that they are “connected”. So when I entered the one we use the first data is collected from my house to the first stop.
The next delivery point of travelers data when not living in the airport and think about environmental elements will be the airport express train (Flytoget) where the entry point will be to buy a ticket. Cash is hard to use so the alternatives are all digital..
After a quick and smooth time on the train the next “collector” meet you when you get of the train and want to enter the next, check point to verify that you have a valid ticket after the train ride. We live in a time where efficiency is all about the customer doing the work 🙂
Next up on this is to check in and since my airliner on this kind of trip is more manual than usual there are some stages here. Boarding pass and luggage.
On flights like this and with luggage you need to still visit the “manual” counter to check your ticket, luggage and passport, yes the passport was already scanned in the machine above, but hey I guess the digital World still have some evolution to do…
All done with the tickets, boarding pass, luggage and passport check. Next is then security and Oslo Airport Gardermoen is a “modern” airport where the validation to come into the more manual security check is via one more digital check..
All on the innside it is time to start looking into a how to be more “free” from the digital tracking..
Yes, the digital world keeps track into your accounts but still a harder game to track the note numbers on $ spent on totally legal activities the other side.
So now one is left alone for a while until boarding…
Next stage, sorry, forgot the passport check leaving Europe. I guess it worked so smoothly due to the automated scan off my passport…
Now then to enter plains going across to USA there is now an other checkpoint where questions are asked that also are in the ESTA questionary.
Then there is a nice flight of many hours to see this kind of view from the plain entering the Bay Area in San Francisco.
The next “stop” and check is US customs that at times is a very busy place. This time we where in luck on the flight from Europe.
Getting through customs just takes time but when everything in order the positive thing is that you do not have to wait for luggage on the next “pit” stop.. it is already there…
Traveling from the SFO this time after thinking about all the digital tracking an in my world total lack of coordination on the mata data collected..
Nice to spend some cash on a hard working nice Taxi driver… “cash is still king” 🙂
It is important to keep track of data and use it right. Since I work a lot on this topic I really wonder why there is not more done to give the paying customer, the traveler a more smooth experience.
regards
bj