Every asset, agent and vehicle across your airport, in real time
For airport operators and ground handlers managing baggage carts, tractors, staff and vehicles across terminals, baggage areas and airside zones. Pole Star turns location into operational intelligence - from asset tracking to ground operations analytics.
Trusted by leading airports & operators
What is airport RTLS?
Airport RTLS (Real-Time Location System) is the use of indoor and indoor/outdoor positioning to track assets, vehicles and staff across terminals, baggage areas and airside zones. It uses wireless infrastructure such as BLE tags, BLE-enabled Wi-Fi and professional smartphones to give ground operations teams continuous visibility of baggage carts, tractors and agents, reducing search time and improving turnaround performance.
Indoor and outdoor airport location
Pole Star tracks baggage carts, ground agents, electric baggage tractors and service vehicles in real time, with supervision dashboards and operational analytics.
Operators and ground handlers
Airport operators, ground handling companies, operations and baggage teams, and the supervisors coordinating activity across terminals and airside.
Scale, traffic and turnaround pressure
Growing terminal complexity, high passenger traffic and constant turnaround pressure expose the limits of manual checks and fragmented reporting.
BLE assets plus mobile agents
Pole Star combines BLE tags on assets with existing BLE-enabled Wi-Fi, plus smartphone-based NAO Mobile for agents and vehicles, unified in one indoor/outdoor location layer.
Why real-time location became critical in airports
Airports are among the world's most complex operational environments, with thousands of assets, agents and vehicles moving continuously across terminals, baggage halls and airside zones under constant time pressure.
Every day, major hubs manage thousands of baggage carts moving between terminals and passenger areas. Ground handling teams and baggage tractors also operate across indoor sorting facilities and outdoor aprons, making real-time visibility difficult without accurate location data.
The result is lost or misplaced carts, congestion at key operational areas and fragmented coordination across assets and ground teams. GPS cannot provide indoor coverage, while manual processes quickly become outdated.
By leveraging the existing BLE and Wi-Fi infrastructure together with the smartphones already carried by staff, real-time location intelligence delivers a unified view of both indoor and outdoor airport operations.
The operational realities of running an airport at scale
The recurring friction points across terminals, baggage areas and airside — the ones that drive delays, cost and passenger dissatisfaction before anyone calls them a location problem.
Baggage carts never where passengers need them
Carts pile up in low-demand zones while check-in halls and arrivals run short.
Thousands of carts move across terminals with availability managed reactively, by manual checks and estimation.
Passenger dissatisfaction and constant, unplanned redistribution work.
Baggage carts lost or stolen
Carts disappear, sit inactive for long periods or leave the operational perimeter.
There is no real-time visibility over a fleet of thousands of individual units.
Replacement cost, a shrinking usable fleet and recurring shortages.
Blind spots between indoor and airside zones
Agents and vehicles move between baggage halls and outdoor aprons without a single view of where they are.
GPS fails indoors and systems are managed in isolated silos.
Fragmented coordination and lost time at every zone boundary.
Congestion at baggage sorter infeed points
Saturation builds at sorter infeed areas before teams can react.
There is no live view of agent and vehicle flow toward the infeed.
Bottlenecks, baggage transfer delays and knock-on turnaround risk.
Mission coordination that relies on manual reporting
Supervisors assign and track ground handling missions from fragmented information.
Without a unified location view, reallocation depends on radio calls and best guesses.
Slow response when flights slip and no data to optimize.
Manual inventory checks that drain field teams
Staff walk zones to count carts and equipment by hand.
There is no automated, zone-based counting across operational areas.
Labor cost and data that is already stale by the time it is recorded.
What Pole Star tracks across the airport
Real-time cart geolocation
How a baggage cart is located
Assets tracked
BLE for assets, NAO Mobile for agents and vehiclesBaggage carts
BLEThousands circulate across terminals - the core of real-time availability and loss prevention.
Baggage tractors
NAO MobileElectric tractors tracked via smartphone across baggage areas and airside zones.
Ground agents
NAO MobileLocated in real time on professional devices for mission coordination and live monitoring.
Ground support equipment
BLEGSE units tagged and located to reduce search time and improve utilization.
Service vehicles
NAO MobileFleet visibility across indoor and outdoor operational zones without dedicated hardware.
Wheelchairs
BLEPassenger assistance assets kept available and accountable across the terminal.
Deployment environments
Indoor and airside zones, each with its own constraintCheck-in halls
High passenger density and peak-hour surges that drain cart availability fast.
Arrival & baggage claim
Concentrated demand for carts as passengers collect baggage on arrival.
Baggage sorting areas
Indoor zones where agent and tractor congestion builds at sorter infeed points.
Aprons & airside
Outdoor operational zones where GPS is unreliable and safety constraints are high.
Passenger terminals
Large circulation areas requiring continuous coverage across long distances.
Cart storage & return
Drop-off and return zones where surpluses accumulate and need rebalancing.
Security & exits
Interface points where cart flow must be monitored between controlled areas.
Parking interfaces
Transition zones between terminals and parking where carts frequently drift.
Real-time location of every baggage cart across the airport
Baggage carts are among the most mobile and most searched-for assets in any airport. Lost time finding carts, uneven fleet distribution and manual stock checks directly impact ground crew efficiency and passenger experience. Pole Star solves this with continuous, real-time BLE tracking across all indoor and outdoor areas.
Each baggage cart is fitted with a compact BLE tag that continuously broadcasts its identifier at low power - no battery replacement needed for years.
The airport's existing BLE or Wi-Fi access points capture tag signals. No dedicated hardware is required - the system rides on the infrastructure already in place.
The NAO® Track engine processes BLE signals and publishes each cart's position on a live indoor map, updated continuously and accessible to ground operations teams.
Real-time supervision & operational analytics
Watch how the NAO® Viewer dashboard gives ground operations teams a live, unified view of every baggage cart across the airport - with fleet heatmaps, zone occupancy and alert management in a single interface.
Know where every agent and tractor is - indoors and outdoors
On a busy apron, agents move between terminal gates, baggage halls and outdoor tarmac while baggage tractors shuttle continuously between stands and sorting facilities. Losing track of either means slower turnarounds, wasted dispatching time and harder incident management. Pole Star delivers a unified live view across both layers - on the same platform.
The NAO® Mobile SDK runs on agents' professional smartphones. No dedicated badge or wearable needed - the app delivers continuous indoor positioning as agents move through terminals, gates and baggage halls.
Each tractor carries a compact BLE tag. Signals are captured by the airport's existing BLE or Wi-Fi access points, computing the tractor's position inside terminal zones and across the apron.
As agents and tractors move between indoor and outdoor zones, positioning switches seamlessly between BLE (indoors) and GNSS (apron, tarmac) - delivering a single, uninterrupted track across the full airport footprint.
All positions - agents and tractors - are aggregated into a single real-time supervision dashboard, with filtering by zone, team or vehicle type and configurable geofence alerts.
Indoor/outdoor continuity: the transition between BLE indoor and GNSS outdoor is automatic and transparent - no manual switch, no location gap at the terminal door.
The same operation, before and after real-time location
She radios around, sends staff to hunt for spare carts and rebalances by hand - reacting only once passengers are already complaining.
A zone shortage alert fires automatically. She sees where surplus carts sit and dispatches a targeted rebalancing before passengers notice.
Carts back where passengers need them, fewer complaints and less wasted movement.
Losses only surface at inventory time, with no way to tell which carts left the perimeter or have sat inactive for days.
Inactivity and abnormal-movement alerts flag carts leaving zones, while historical patterns reveal loss hotspots.
Fewer losses and thefts, and a healthier, better-used fleet.
He coordinates from fragmented radio updates, with limited visibility on who is where across indoor and airside zones.
He sees every agent and tractor live on one indoor/outdoor view and reassigns missions dynamically as conditions change.
Faster turnaround response and smoother coordination under pressure.
Congestion is discovered only once bags back up, and the resulting delays cascade through the operation.
Continuous movement tracking flags saturation risk early at infeed points, so he adjusts the workflow before the bottleneck forms.
Fewer bottlenecks, reduced processing delays and better service level compliance.
From airport challenge to Pole Star solution
Every operational challenge on this page maps to a specific Pole Star capability - the routing layer between the problems ground teams face and the solutions that address them.
How airports put real-time location to work
Concrete, day-to-day scenarios where indoor and outdoor location changes the outcome - from check-in halls to the apron.
How airports keep baggage carts available at check-in
Cart racks empty out during a morning departure peak.
Zone counting and shortage alerts show where carts are needed.
Carts rebalanced before passengers are affected.
How airports reduce baggage cart loss and theft
Carts drift out of the perimeter or sit inactive for days.
Inactivity and zone-breach alerts flag at-risk carts.
Fewer losses and a larger usable fleet.
How airports count carts by zone automatically
Teams waste hours on manual inventory checks.
The system counts carts per operational zone in real time.
Live availability data with no manual counting.
How ground handlers coordinate agents and tractors
A flight slips and missions must be reassigned fast.
Live indoor/outdoor positions support dynamic mission assignment.
Faster reallocation and smoother turnaround.
How airports prevent congestion at baggage sorter infeed
Saturation builds at the sorter infeed during peaks.
Movement tracking detects congestion risk early.
Bottlenecks avoided and transfer delays reduced.
How airports track assets across indoor and outdoor zones
Assets vanish from view when moving between halls and apron.
A unified location layer covers indoor and airside continuously.
No blind spots at zone boundaries.
How airports rebalance cart fleets between terminals
One terminal runs short while another holds a surplus.
Distribution data guides proactive redistribution workflows.
Balanced availability across the whole airport.
How airports build traceability for ground operations
There is no objective record of missions and movements.
Every mission and movement is logged automatically.
Full traceability and data to improve performance.
Built for airport security and operational constraints
Airport deployments operate under demanding industrial, security and data requirements. Pole Star is designed to fit within these constraints and integrate with the systems airports already run.
Industrial, operational and security constraints
Solutions deployed in a live airport must comply with strict industrial, operational and security rules.
Deployments are designed and delivered to comply with industrial, operational and security constraints, at scale and without heavy infrastructure changes.
Interoperability with existing airport systems
New systems must integrate with existing airport IT and operational platforms without disruption.
The platform is interoperable and integrates with existing airport IT and operational systems, including infrastructure such as Cisco, within a broader partner ecosystem.
Data governance and deployment control
Tracking assets and staff calls for control over where data lives and how it is processed.
A hybrid cloud and on-premise architecture lets airports align data governance and residency with their own policies. See how the platform works.
Operational traceability and audit
Ground operations need reliable logs for audit, reporting and continuous improvement.
All missions and movements are automatically recorded, generating operational logs, traceability data and performance analytics.
What airport teams gain
Real-time location turns constant movement into operational clarity. The outcomes below are qualitative and drawn from live airport deployments.
Carts available where passengers need them
Zone counting and alerts keep the fleet balanced across the terminal.
Fewer lost and stolen carts
Inactivity and zone-breach alerts protect the usable fleet.
No more manual inventory checks
Automated, zone-based counting replaces walking the floor to count carts.
Unified indoor and outdoor visibility
One continuous view across terminals, baggage areas and airside.
Faster, data-driven coordination
Supervisors reassign missions live as operations change.
Early detection of congestion
Saturation risk at sorter infeed points is flagged before bottlenecks form.
Full traceability and analytics
Every mission and movement logged for reporting and continuous improvement.
Scales on existing infrastructure
Thousands of assets across terminals, without heavy infrastructure changes.
Proven at Paris Charles de Gaulle
Atalian - Paris CDG
Managing thousands of baggage carts at scale - recurring shortages, surpluses, losses and no real-time visibility, all handled reactively.
Each cart is tagged with BLE and located through 2,000+ existing BLE-enabled Cisco Wi-Fi access points. Zone-based counting and intelligent alerts run on NAO® Track, NAO® Viewer and NAO® Cloud, integrated via Cisco Spaces, with partners Hub One and Atalian.
- Substantial reduction in baggage cart losses and theft
- Improved cart availability in passenger-critical zones
- Optimized redistribution and time savings for field teams
ONET - Paris CDG
Coordinating ground handling across indoor sorting facilities and outdoor apron zones from fragmented information and manual reporting.
50+ agents and electric baggage tractors are geolocated by smartphone using NAO® Mobile - with no dedicated vehicle hardware - across indoor and airside zones, with real-time supervision and mission tracking on NAO® Viewer.
- Optimized baggage handling workflows and reduced processing delays
- Improved coordination between agents and vehicles
- Consolidated indoor and outdoor operational visibility
Why leading airports choose Pole Star for indoor location
Built for complex airport operations, Pole Star delivers proven indoor location solutions that improve baggage cart availability, ground handling coordination and operational visibility across terminals and airside areas.
Proven in major international airports
Pole Star powers large-scale airport deployments including Aéroports de Paris (CDG), supporting thousands of connected baggage carts and ground operations every day in demanding live environments.
Paris Charles de GaulleBuilt on existing airport infrastructure
Pole Star leverages existing BLE infrastructure, Wi-Fi networks and smartphones already used by ground staff, reducing deployment costs while avoiding complex infrastructure replacement projects.
BLE · Wi-Fi · Smartphone compatibleDesigned for complex airport operations
From passenger terminals and baggage halls to airside aprons and service roads, Pole Star delivers seamless indoor and outdoor location across large airport campuses, helping coordinate assets, vehicles and ground teams in real time.
Terminal · Airside · Multi-terminal campusOne platform for multiple airport use cases
A single location platform supports asset tracking, baggage cart management, flow analytics, workforce visibility and operational supervision, providing a unified real-time view of airport activities.
Asset tracking · Flow analytics · Operational visibilityAirport indoor location, answered
How does Pole Star improve airport operations?
Pole Star provides real-time visibility of airport assets, vehicles and operational teams, helping airports optimize daily operations, reduce delays and improve overall efficiency across terminals and airside areas.
How are baggage carts tracked in real time?
Each baggage cart is equipped with a BLE tag. Pole Star continuously locates every cart on an interactive map, allowing airport teams to quickly identify shortages and redistribute carts where they are needed.
Can Pole Star locate ground handling teams?
Yes. Ground handlers, maintenance technicians and operational staff carrying compatible smartphones or BLE devices can be located in real time, improving coordination and response times.
Which airport assets can Pole Star track?
Pole Star tracks baggage carts, wheelchairs, service vehicles, maintenance equipment, cleaning carts and virtually any mobile asset equipped with BLE tags.
Can Pole Star improve passenger experience?
Yes. Indoor positioning supports passenger wayfinding, reduces baggage cart shortages and helps airport operators deliver smoother journeys throughout the terminal.
Does Pole Star provide indoor navigation?
Yes. Pole Star offers accurate indoor navigation that guides passengers through terminals, helping them find gates, shops, lounges, baggage claim areas and airport services.
Can Pole Star analyze passenger flows?
Yes. Airports can analyze passenger movement patterns, identify congestion points and optimize terminal layouts, staffing and operational processes.
Can Pole Star operate across multiple terminals?
Yes. The platform provides seamless indoor positioning across multiple terminals, connecting operational teams and assets throughout the airport campus.
How accurate is Pole Star's indoor positioning?
Pole Star delivers room-level or operational-area accuracy depending on infrastructure density, providing reliable positioning for airport operations.
Can Pole Star work indoors and outdoors?
Yes. Pole Star combines indoor positioning with outdoor location services, enabling continuous tracking from passenger terminals to apron and operational areas.
What technology does Pole Star use?
Pole Star primarily uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) together with existing Wi-Fi infrastructure to provide accurate indoor positioning without requiring proprietary hardware.
Can Pole Star use existing airport infrastructure?
Yes. Pole Star leverages existing BLE-enabled Wi-Fi access points and wireless infrastructure, significantly reducing deployment costs and implementation time.
Can Pole Star integrate with airport systems?
Yes. Open APIs allow integration with airport operational systems, digital maps, mobile applications and third-party airport technologies.
Can Pole Star scale across large airports?
Yes. Pole Star is designed for large international airports and can scale from a single terminal to multi-terminal airport campuses with thousands of connected assets.
Why do airports choose Pole Star?
Airports choose Pole Star because it leverages existing infrastructure, delivers enterprise-grade indoor positioning and supports multiple use cases including baggage cart tracking, workforce tracking, indoor navigation, flow analytics and operational supervision.
Transform your airport operations with real-time location
Improve baggage cart availability, coordinate ground teams, monitor airport assets and deliver better passenger experiences with a single indoor location platform built for modern airports.
Trusted by Atalian and ONET at Paris Charles de Gaulle