Birmingham Airport’s Research Manager retires after revolutionising the research process
January 2006
Birmingham International Airport’s Research Manager, Kevin Millward retires after 30 years of service. He has been one of Snap’s long-standing software users and has been with us since Version 3 of the software back in 1996. He is responsible for implementing and streamlining the whole research process at the airport through introducing hand held PDAs in conjunction with Snap PDA Interviewer. This has revolutionised the way they consult their passengers, retail outlets and employees.
Kevin started off his Research profession in 1975 for the West Midlands County Council’s transport department. The transport section was accountable for consulting and finding out the views and opinions of the general public on the new terminal, which opened in 1984. He moved from there to the airport’s planning department in 1983 where he has developed his role and introduced the new research methods.
The airport started off conducting as little as two surveys per year over a period of just two weeks, which increased to two months a year and is now a continuous process. On average they survey over 30,000 people a year across the various passenger surveys that are carried out. For a number of years, face to face interviewing at the airport was carried out using the traditional paper and clipboard method. This process is widely known to be not only time consuming and expensive but also subject to error when paper notes are converted to digital data.
Kevin first saw a demonstration of Snap at a research event and realised that the PDA module was the most effective method to simplify the whole process and reduce labour time and costs. The first PDAs were a far cry from the latest versions and consisted of a keyboard with a small screen. These were introduced to field-workers within the airport with a basic black and white graphical survey uploaded, as this was one of the earliest versions of Snap PDA Interviewer. Since then, the module has come on leaps and bounds and now incorporates a selection of PDA design templates, text substitution and routing along with the latest PDA models which are lightweight, slick and user-friendly.
Kevin explains, the PDA has reformed the way the airport has developed its research programme and with mobile data collection tools now surveys passengers on their origin and destination, exit surveys for their retail outlets and employee surveys. Customer satisfaction surveys are also applied on a range of subjects from catering to public transport access. The airport has recently purchased the Internet capability in Snap to incorporate web surveys into the consultation process. Plans are to survey all 90,000 members of their BHX Flight loyalty club through e-mail invites, pop-up surveys and possibly utilising panels so that Kevin’s hard work and results carry on even after he retires. “I plan to take a well deserved rest but will still be keeping up to date with research and Snap developments. I will still be looking around at Airports as I travel to see if my pioneering work has made a difference.”
Note: All of our research work is undertaken in accordance with the MARKET RESEARCH SOCIETY CODE of CONDUCT and our researchers are all members of the MRS. We are registered under the data protection act 1998 and ISO 9001:2000 and BS7911:2003 quality standards.