How IoT is Transforming Airport Operations: Lessons from Jacksonville International

Airports are among the most operationally complex facilities in the world — thousands of passengers daily, sprawling terminals, critical equipment, and a non-negotiable need to maintain cleanliness, comfort, and safety. Jacksonville International Airport (JAX) in Florida, ranked #2 in J.D. Power’s 2024 medium airport satisfaction study, took on a data-driven transformation using Milesight IoT sensors and LoRaWAN® connectivity. The results offer a compelling blueprint for airports and large public facilities worldwide.

The Challenge: Operational Blind Spots at Scale

JAX covers 7,911 acres, serves over 7 million passengers annually, and operates a terminal with 20 gates. Despite its strong satisfaction ranking, airport management identified several areas where real-time data could meaningfully improve operations:

• Restroom management: Cleaning schedules were fixed — not tied to actual usage — meaning restrooms were sometimes cleaned during low-traffic periods and left unattended during peak passenger flows, creating frustration at gates before boarding
• Air quality compliance: HVAC systems operated on pre-set schedules that couldn’t respond to real-time occupancy or environmental conditions, leading to inconsistent comfort and missed optimisation opportunities
• Resource waste: Without occupancy data, custodial teams were deployed inefficiently, spending time on clean facilities while high-traffic areas went unattended
• Predictive maintenance gaps: Escalators, baggage handling systems, and other critical equipment lacked real-time health monitoring, making it impossible to predict failures before they disrupted passenger flow

The Solution: Milesight Sensors on LoRaWAN®

Milesight partner Senzary deployed its SkySmart solution at JAX, built on Milesight wireless sensors and Actility’s ThingPark Enterprise (TPE) LoRaWAN® Network Server. The system was designed to be non-invasive — installed largely by airport personnel themselves in a single day, without touching the airport’s existing IT network, using secure SIM-card managed connectivity instead.

Key Milesight devices deployed include:

• VS350 Passage People Counter — mounted at restroom entrances to accurately count each person entering, feeding real-time occupancy data to the management platform
• AM308L 8-in-1 IAQ Sensor — measuring temperature, humidity, light, CO₂, TVOC, barometric pressure, PM2.5, and PM10 across terminal areas to monitor air quality and HVAC effectiveness
• GS301 Bathroom Odor Detector — measuring ammonia and hydrogen sulfide concentrations in real time, with a built-in alarm, traffic-light indicator, and buzzer that alerts staff when thresholds are reached

Actility’s TPE platform manages the LoRaWAN® network backbone, ensuring reliable communication across all sensors, pre-deployment device testing, remote troubleshooting, and uninterrupted data flow even during internet outages.

Smarter Restroom Management

The VS350 people counters give facility managers precise foot traffic data per restroom per hour. Rather than cleaning on a fixed schedule, custodial teams now follow a data-driven schedule with two governing rules: clean when the usage threshold is reached, and avoid peak traffic hours to minimise passenger disruption.

The system also integrates with flight arrival and departure data via FlightAware, enabling the platform to project restroom demand for the next 8 hours based on incoming flight schedules. Managers see which facilities will experience surges and can pre-position cleaning staff accordingly — a step-change from reactive to proactive facility management.

The GS301 odor detectors add a further layer: even if a restroom hasn’t hit its footfall threshold, a spike in ammonia or hydrogen sulfide triggers an immediate alert, ensuring hygiene issues are caught in real time regardless of traffic patterns.

Air Quality Monitoring and Compliance

The AM308L sensors enable HVAC systems to respond to actual occupancy and environmental conditions rather than pre-set schedules. CO₂ levels, volatile organic compounds, particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10), and temperature/humidity are continuously tracked across all terminal areas. This data supports both passenger comfort and compliance with the FAA’s Airport Improvement Program (AIP) requirements for environmental monitoring, as well as international air quality certification standards.

Results: From Reactive to Predictive

The SkySmart deployment established comprehensive baseline metrics and predictive maintenance capabilities within weeks of installation. Key outcomes include:

• Optimised cleaning schedules that avoid peak passenger hours, reducing facility complaints
• Significant custodial labour hours saved annually through data-driven deployment
• Real-time dashboards giving facility managers, custodial supervisors, and airport operations teams role-appropriate views of critical metrics
• A foundation for AI-enabled predictive maintenance on escalators, baggage handling systems, and other critical assets
• Healthier indoor environments through continuous air quality monitoring and responsive HVAC management

Relevance for Malaysian Airports and Large Facilities

Malaysia’s airports, shopping malls, convention centres, hospitals, and government buildings face directly comparable challenges: high daily footfall, the need to maintain hygiene standards in extensive restroom facilities, and pressure to optimise operational costs without compromising the visitor experience. The LoRaWAN®-based approach used at JAX is particularly well-suited to Malaysian conditions — sensors can be deployed without disrupting existing IT infrastructure, battery life is measured in years, and the LoRaWAN® network scales from a single building to a campus or multi-site estate.

KLIA, KLIA2, and major regional airports handle tens of millions of passengers annually. The same data-driven restroom management, real-time air quality monitoring, and predictive maintenance capabilities demonstrated at Jacksonville are directly deployable in Malaysian airport terminals, retail malls, and large public buildings.

Riajati Sdn Bhd is the authorised Milesight partner in Malaysia, supplying the VS350 people counter, AM308L IAQ sensor, GS301 odor detector, and the full range of Milesight LoRaWAN® sensors and gateways. Contact us to discuss a smart facilities solution for your site.