Why the TSA can’t figure out how to report wait times
It’s a question that’s baffled many a traveler: Why can you get an accurate picture of the traffic you’ll face on the way to the airport, yet you have no idea how long you’ll cool your heels in line at security? With more fliers expected to take to the skies this summer, the question is taking on a new urgency. Memories of the 2016 summer of hell, when lines at security reached epic lengths, still make us wince, and with PreCheck express lanes getting backed up these days, travelers are asking: where is the Waze for airports?
There is one—but you’ve probably never heard of it: For more than seven years, the TSA has had its own app. MyTSA is basically a compact version of tips and information you’d find on the TSA website, like what you are and aren’t allowed to bring through security. It includes a crowdsourced wait-time sharing feature, allowing travelers to post how long it took them to get through their respective checkpoint. Yet this feature was fraught with problems from the beginning: as we reported in 2016, the longest wait that could be posted was “31+ minutes”—at a time when major airports such as New York’s JFK and LaGuardia were experiencing waits of up to 120 minutes. The TSA later fixed it to allow more realistic reporting, but then reportedly became concerned the app made it too easy for irate passengers to post inflated wait times to make the agency look bad. At the time, the agency even produced a set of alternative stats that painted a rosier picture, to counter the impressions its own app was creating.
Ultimately the agency threw out the old version, and in March 2017 rolled out a MyTSA 3.0—to little fanfare. Based on several weeks of our own road testing, it’s less helpful than the previous iteration. If you check several major airports for wait times, you’ll frequently see a single line: “No recent posts.” I checked it over a three-week period for JFK, O’Hare, LGA, Newark, LAX, and Atlanta, as well as other large airports, and the paucity of information was striking. Most often, one or two “No waits” or “1-10 minute waits” was about the only data given. On the afternoon of May 3, the page for Newark Airport showed that one traveler had reported a wait time of 61-90 minutes. Given that Newark averages more than 100,000 passengers on a given day, it’s notable no one else standing in that queue bothered to post. Two hours later, all evidence of that wait was removed, and the same page showed one traveler posting “No Wait.”
In addition, there’s no date or time stamp on the reports (there was before), and TSA says it will only report an “average” wait time based on the information it receives. There’s more: the app does not give wait times for specific checkpoint locations, which can vary widely among terminals. Some airport pages show a bar graph displaying busy cycles—but with no specific times listed, the graph is useless.
Mike England, a spokesman for the TSA, says that in this latest app iteration, reporting was limited to a two-hour expiration from the time posted, to “prevent users from posting wait times while not at the airport. This way, passengers can be sure that the wait times being displayed in the app are relevant and accurate.”
He also said, “Not only does the MyTSA app display an average of recently reported wait times, it also uses TSA historical data to let passengers know how busy the checkpoint generally is at their selected day and time.” TSA did not respond to our requests for the number of downloads or posting activity since the latest version was released. It bears questioning why the organization isn’t doing more to promote the app; a check of the TSA blog for posts about the new wait time feature yielded few hits since its newest release.
Crowdsourcing isn’t a guaranteed marker of success when it comes to the app. Like Waze, its effectiveness relies on reaching a critical mass, and that means users have to be motivated to take the time to stop and post. It’s possible fliers are more interested in getting to their gate on time. Unlike Waze, airports can’t simply offer an alternative path to avoid the backlog—save for the few where multiple checkpoints lead to the same gates. Despite the app’s efficacy issues, the TSA still believes the crowdsourced approach has merit. “The more people who use the ‘wait times’ portion of the app, the better it works,” England says.
There are other routes the TSA could go for real-time wait reporting. JFK’s Terminal 4 has had a system in place for several years that displays processing times for travelers passing through lines at security and customs. The system uses Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals to track wireless devices as passengers move through the line, gathering data to calculate time from the entrance to exit points. These processing times are displayed on monitors located at TSA security checkpoints, customs clearance facilities, and even the indoor taxi line.
How did JFK pull it off? While most airport facilities are under the purview of local governments, JFK’s Terminal 4 is run by a private company—JFK IAT, an affiliate of Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, known for its innovations in airport technology. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority took a cue, and at Washington Dulles airport (IAD), fliers now can check the website for wait times before they leave home.
The technology for accurate wait reporting exists. The question is why TSA isn’t at the forefront, pushing for a broad plan to implement these advances on a national level. These are their checkpoints, after all.