Covid-risk assessment tool sets course for travel

Australian ingenuity is behind the world’s first Covid-risk assessment tool to help reignite international travel.

GOPASS Global provides a platform for travellers to assess their Covid-risk content of their planned journey. Image: GOPASS Global.

A team of Australian data analytics experts have used their downtime during the Covid-19 pandemic to develop a world-first tool for travellers to quickly assess the risk of their journey.

Called GOPASS Global, the platform has already been rolled out to a number of travel industry heavyweights including Lufthansa, Sabre and Global Travel Network.

Covering 3900 airports in 240 countries, and 260 aircraft types across 732 airlines, the platform uses information from 35 data sources to calculate the level of Covid-19 risk to a traveller throughout their trip.

GOPASS chief executive Mark Radford said the product aimed to fill the need for “risk management” for travellers in a pandemic world.

“You’ve got a lot of information services and they’re very good but no-one is actually able to say ‘this is the safest aircraft, this is the safest route around Covid-19’ and that’s really where we want to focus,” he said.

“The real-time information is really critical and offering a risk equation is a world-first.”

As well as delivering a risk rating between one (low) and 10 (extreme), the platform provided travellers with up-to-the-minute information about their health and legal obligations.

GOPASS chief revenue officer Kristy Williams said in the first instance, it would be used by travel agents to help clients navigate the Covid-regulation nightmare.

“Up until now, you’ve gone to a travel agent, bought your ticket, booked a hotel and got your travel insurance and you’re good to go. With Covid-19 that game has changed,” Ms Williams said.

“Understanding the safest way to go from Sydney to Paris is really important so maybe going via Doha is safer than Dubai, and flying with a certain airline over another could be preferential.”

Data used to inform the platform came from a wide variety of high-level sources including the World Health Organisation, John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and even the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency).

Mr Radford said they also used Google mobility to assess how well a Covid outbreak was being managed in a particular country or region.

“If a country has been in lockdown but we still see increased mobility with the country, then that will be a danger sign and we will rate that country in a bad way if they’re not adhering to government regulations,” he said.

“We look at the effectiveness of government so we use the WHO rating for public response as well.”

Other factors that could increase the risk rating for a traveller were stopovers or transits through places with high Covid-19 infection rates, and the type of aircraft used for the trip.

“If you’re on a single aisle aeroplane as opposed to say an A350 that’s dual aisle, has the best air cleaning system and a great toilet to passenger ratio all that sort of stuff, that will raise the risk,” Mr Radford said.

“It’s all these factors that contribute to the overall score.”

Initially designed with corporate travellers in mind, the developers were in the process of adapting the platform for the use of people who preferred to book their own travel online.

For a small cost, individuals would be able to log into the system and key in their destinations to receive a full risk assessment.