Imagine you just landed at JFK Airport for the first time in your entire life. You know you need to make it to the subway next, but there's one problem: You have no idea where that is.
Now imagine not being able to hear.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is attempting to solve this problem by rolling out American Sign Language Interpretation programs at its major facilities. That includes places like the Bus Terminal, PATH stations, and yes, JFK Airport. Keith Armonaitis is the head of the Port Authority's Information Technology Innovation Lab, and joined WNYC and Gothamist this week.
Michael Hill: Keith. Let's keep this simple. Explain what this service is?
Keith Armonaitis: It's a company that we use called Convo, and basically think of it as having somebody in your FaceTime that you could just call when you need to have a sign language interpreter. So when somebody arrives at JFK and they go to one of our information booths, they'll see a QR code and they scan it.
It automatically connects to an American Sign Language interpreter on demand on their smartphone. So what happens is the person who's deaf or hard of hearing can sign into it using the front facing camera, and the sign language interpreter can then speak to the person that they're interacting with and vice versa.
Wow. And is this all hours? All minutes of the day?
If you are in a Port Authority facility, then you're able to use it.
Keith, tell us, how did this program come about?
So the Port Authority, as I'm sure you may imagine, they're more conservative in terms of the programs that they normally utilize. And so we worked with the Partnership for New York City. A program called the Transit Tech Lab, and basically what happens is it allows us access to early stage companies and emerging technologies where the Port Authority may not have been able to interact with them before. And so one of the challenges that we had put out a couple of years ago was a customer service challenge and Convo Communications replied to it, and we brought it in for eight weeks.
We saw that there was a significant amount of usage and people gave a lot of positive feedback, so we expanded it for a one year pilot. And over that year we had it in 12 locations. We basically had 36 hours of usage for people with American Sign Language in order to get through our facilities.
So people are actually using this already?
Yeah. Oh yeah. They're using it already and now we're actually looking to expand it to 16 locations. You know, a lot of people may not know how large the Port Authority is It's not just the bus terminal, as you said before. It's JFK, it's LaGuardia Newark, right? Stewart Airport, Teterboro, the PATH system. And because of that, we have tens of millions of people that come through our spaces every year. And since approximately 2% of the American population is hard of hearing or deaf, 2% of tens of millions of people is effectively millions of people.
Now, can you tell us what feedback have you gotten on the program so far, and is it affecting how the Port Authority continues to roll out this program?
The majority of the feedback that we've gotten has been excellent. You know, the deaf community feels like it's actually being seen and heard.
One of the big challenges, especially if you're going through a confusing space such as the Port Authority Bus Terminal, is how to actually give people good directions to get to where they need to get to, and this has been a great bridge for them. So a lot of the most positive feedback that we've gotten has been for the Port Authority Bus Terminal because people get confused very easily in the space.
But to actually feel like there's somebody who can, you know, talk in their language and tell 'em where they need to go,it really helps to kind of take a lot of the anxiety out of the trip.
Keith, we're in an environment where technological advances are happening almost daily. What does it mean that we're using technology like this for American Sign Language?
You know, every time I start to get down on the idea of having a computer in my pocket that does nothing but bring me strife, you know, technology like this reminds me that there are ways to actually help people, which is what was my original kind of mission when I joined the Port Authority. I mean, the, the way that I look at it, Michael, is if I'm able to save one minute of somebody's life across the tens of millions of people that come through, that's lifetimes that have actually been impacted.
Keith Armonaitis leads the Information Technology Innovation Lab at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Keith, thank you for joining us for this conversation.
Well, thank you, Michael. Have a great day.
