The DUB Passport/Immigration Queue Thread

The Veteran

Don’t know who “the guy” in T2 was who said he wasn’t aware of any plans to include the passport card. It can be used in the machines once the initial roll out is complete.

The Gates are open 08:00 to midnight at present - again because it’s early days; will expand after that.

LiamaDelta

Arrived in T2 Monday approx 23.00. Was waiting for the automatic machines but they seemed slow and also rejecting most people so I just went to a booth instead. There was no queue to speak of at either booth or machines. Those that were rejected by the machine seemed to have to ask to be 'released' rather than the rear gate just opening and allowing them return to the booth.
Confusion all round, many people really wanted to use the new machines but ultimately annoyed that they seem to be a waste of time. Whilst I understand 'teething problems' and that these will be ironed out it does make DAA/INIS look rather incompetent, at least to the uninformed traveller (majority) that use these successfully in many other countries. Comments such as 'ha typically Irish' or 'wow 2017 and we can't get a simple electronic machine to work' were heard.

The Veteran

Some advice for using the Gates:

Passport open on biodata page;
Place the passport biodata page down and slide it in until it “stops”;
The “feeder” will then take the document - important!!!! Let go of the document. If you don’t, the transaction will be “rejected” as the document will not be read. This piece is an absolutely key piece. The grinding noise you may hear is when a passenger tries to fight the Gate and hold on to their passport. The feeder is necessary in order to read cards.
Once a passenger is inside the Gate, essentially it is a matter of either successfully getting through or an officer releasing the passenger “backwards” - this only happens when the officer has checked what the problem is and decides to release the passenger.

The Gates are far from “simple machines”.

Most people are not being rejected, but a significant number are and there is a lot of work going on to bring the rejections down.

billy few mates

Arrived in T1 late yesterday evening, didn’t actually see the automatic machines but zero queue and was through in seconds.

The Rape of Lucretia

The Veteran wrote: »

Most people are not being rejected, but a significant number are and there is a lot of work going on to bring the rejections down.

This is extraordinary. They have installed prototypes ? And passengers are the guinea pigs to weed out the design and quality faults in them ? It is not as if this is the first airport in the world to implement automatic gates or that the passports being used are different to everywhere else.
Whoever is responsible for it should be shot - the last effort was a fiasco - to be at the same nonsense again is unforgivable.

The Veteran

I didn’t say anything was a prototype or that passengers were being used as a guinea pig. I said a lot of work was going on to reduce the level of rejections. The feeder is new to most passengers - it’s needed to read cards. The supplier has feeders installed in Brussels and Schipol amongst others I’m sure. The feeder is fundamentally different to how the UK’s Gates work and a lot of rejections are British passports as the passengers are not used to the feeder.

The Veteran

It does complicate things but they are necessary to read cards because of the design of cards. Document positioning for reading is key and also cards need to be read front and back unlike a passport bio data page that contains everything. The transaction with a card is slower.

killbillvol2

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

This is extraordinary. They have installed prototypes ? And passengers are the guinea pigs to weed out the design and quality faults in them ? It is not as if this is the first airport in the world to implement automatic gates or that the passports being used are different to everywhere else.
Whoever is responsible for it should be shot - the last effort was a fiasco - to be at the same nonsense again is unforgivable.

Overreact much?

I came through yesterday and the only thing slowing down the machines was the idiots using them.

The Rape of Lucretia

killbillvol2 wrote: »

Overreact much?

Rarely.
I wasnt seriously advocating execution.

The Veteran

The “simple” version is just as prone to errors as it required a passenger to place their document correctly and to hold it down for the time required. Lots of people lift their documents too soon.

The simple version as some are describing it is not an option if you want to read cards

goingnowhere

The problem is very simple

Why is the slot wider than a passport, passports are almost always the exact same dimensions.

ID cards are all a standard size, again a single slot just like a credit card machine would suffice.

The feeder is a expensive way to ensure the passport is flat and doesn't move while the 2 lines at the bottom are read, the document ID number is there, this is then used to unlock the RFID to read the chip

The standard machines in use, Germany, Czech Republic work fine provided you get the passport flat on the plate and don't move, which is hard to manage

The Veteran

Passports are not all the same size and Id cards are not for sure. One way would be to have some Gates passport only and some card only but that would bring other complications.

Dublin’s Gates are barely a week old and were put in to use as soon as available; hence why only 5 svailable I each Terminsl.

Dublin’s Gates also do a lot of things to secure the border that are not obvious.

L1011

What ID cards are not ISO7810-1 size? And who do we take out back to shoot for doing so?

goingnowhere

L1011 wrote: »

What ID cards are not ISO7810-1 size? And who do we take out back to shoot for doing so?

And who issuing passports which are not the standard ISO/IEC 7810 ID-3 B7 size?

All EU machine readable ID's are standard size and they are the only ones the machine is going to accept anyway

Greece+Italy still issue or have issued in the very recent past paper based ID

The Veteran

ICAO 9303 is the standard for eDocs.

Different countries use different weights and standards of paper that impacts “size”. For example a very big difference between an Irish and British passport is how the biodata page is produced.

There are several Machine Readable ID cards that are not usable in Gates - French and Romanian are not credit card sized whilst others do not contain the required chips.

Trust me this is not a simple area even if the transaction looks simple when done right

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

L1011

French making an arse out of something simple is expected; a good old Russian sphere"papers please" country like Romania doing it is less normal.

The Veteran

French Cards when expired can be valid if accompanied by a particular letter; even then their cards don’t possess chips.

Romanian cards are a “unique” shape and don’t possess chips.

The bulk of Italian cards are the paper type; practically no security features never mind a chip.

Greek cards are as bad.

Spanish card has a contact rather than rfid accessible chip

Cards are complicated.

billy few mates

The Veteran wrote: »

The “simple” version is just as prone to errors as it required a passenger to place their document correctly and to hold it down for the time required. Lots of people lift their documents too soon.

The simple version as some are describing it is not an option if you want to read cards

You mean like they do in Tescos every day of the week...? :rolleyes:
They should be a simple ‘place your document on the glass’ and wait while it operates like a scanner, the same as most of the border guards use. The addition of the feeder system to grab the passport and take it in to be read only complicates the system for many reasons. I’ve seen people try to grab their passports when they move, I’ve seen them walk away without them when the gate opens, I’ve seen them try to use them without removing the jacket etc. The additional feeder mechanism is also prone to wear and tear which will also lead to delays and frustration, not to mention increased maintenance costs and poor reliability.
Thirty seconds of a delay may not sound much to you but it is after a long day, a Long flight when you’re stuck in a queue behind three or four people when the machine is having a bad day and you’re watching the people who chose the manual system or another queue waltzing through.
I hope I’m proven wrong but it looks like we bought the Betamax version of the old e-voting machines and in twelve months time they’ll be gathering dust in a warehouse somewhere while we’re all back doing the Conga for the four manned booths in the passport hall...

plodder

I did wonder about the feeder aspect of this system. The German ones are straightforward. You just shove the ID page in as far as it goes and the scanner does its thing. I would have thought a separate slot for cards might have been simpler.

The problem is very simple

Why is the slot wider than a passport, passports are almost always the exact same dimensions.

Actually, it isn't much wider than a passport. If your passport has a cover, you have to take it off, unlike with the German machines.

The Veteran

German passports are a challenge because of the hard cover that Germany uses;

British biodata pages are paper and shrivel

And it goes on ....

rameire

Today Dec 11th Arrivals for T1 at 4.45pm
The first picture is from the Queue of the Terminal 1 security queue.



the second picture is of the queue to get through the E Gates.



total time to get through was around 17 minutes, E-gates would have made the journey longer

Chris_5339762

Used them in T2 for the laugh today. Absolutely the worst E-Gates I've used, I'm sorry to say. At least 10 people got through each manned booth in the time to get three through the E-Gates. 3 were working. One was roped off. Another had crashed.

Now, I know a lot of Irish travellers aren't used to them, and that was half the problem, but I know what I'm doing (relatively speaking anyway) and they just took a long time. Why it has to grab the passport from you I don't know, thats weird. The ones that you place face down and it scans are better from a usability perspective.

The person manning the queue was clearly frustrated with them.

plodder

The other thing I noticed is that they don't (or didn't) do the two stage process where the document is scanned for one passenger while the passenger ahead is getting their photo checked. That unfortunately will reduce the throughput a lot. Having said that though, if there is space available to install a sufficient number of e-gates then that might not be such a big problem.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

plodder

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

It's not tailgating. It's doing the two activities in parallel.

You scan your passport and the rear gate opens. You walk inside to get your photo checked. While your photo is taken and being checked, the next passenger is scanning their document. The gate won't open for them until the passenger ahead leaves through the front gate.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

plodder

I used one in Munich last week.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

goingnowhere

Munich, Dusseldorf and Berlin TXL allow you to scan your passport while the person ahead is checked

Most people wait till the person ahead is released but the feature is there

Sometimes I've had the photo check complete instantly others taking 10 seconds