IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2015 - 78

pertaining to the pilgrim's medical record; such data may
include the patient's name, birth date, blood type, medical history, and other related medical data.

Enhanced Pilgrimage Services
Several experiments have been performed to demonstrate the advantages offered by NFC technology in
improving the following Hajj services.

Pilgrim Identification
As there is no airport in Makkah, entry to the city is
limited to road access only. All routes are manned
by several checkpoints, ensuring that only authorized

Given the widespread availability
of NFC technology in most presentday smart phones, it is sensible
to implement NFC as a solution to
commonly encountered problems
faced by attendees.

require such services concurrently. Using NFC phones,
the Mutawif and his staff members were able to restrict
their prepaid services to only pilgrims who subscribed
to these services. The Mutawif's phone was preloaded
with a database of all pilgrims under his care; therefore,
the identification of subscribed pilgrims in his group
was performed instantly, resulting in improved services
at a reduced cost. Feedback from the service providers
as well as the pilgrims participating in the pilot indicated a preference for such a system to be applied to all
pilgrims, due to its value and improved services.

Medical Emergencies
At a medical center, the attending physicians described
the difficulties in communication faced during Hajj,
particularly with patients who spoke different languages.
Moreover, the center frequently receives patients in a
critical or unconscious condition, who were unable to
communicate even in the absence of a language barrier.
The physicians appreciated the developed system, as
it allowed for the retrieval of a patient's medical history
from the mobile phone independently of their ability to
communicate. However, the physicians noted the need
to train members of the medical staff to update patients'
medical records on their mobile phone platforms for
future visits to other medical centers.

Virtual Information Kiosk

individuals are permitted to enter the area. At one of
these checkpoints, the author provided an officer with
an NFC-enabled mobile phone with the identification
functionality enabled, and explained its use. The officer brought his phone close to a participating pilgrim's
phone and was able to see the pilgrim's identification
information on his mobile phone for verification. Using
this application, the officer was able to reduce the verification time for a 5-passenger vehicle from an average of
3 minutes to approximately 45 seconds, demonstrating
the system's strong potential for improving time efficacy
at these checkpoints. This process may be further expedited by pre-loading the pilgrims' information to the
officers' mobile devices, allowing for the verification of
a pilgrim's permit in only a few seconds.

Hotspots (virtual information kiosks) can be made
available throughout the Holy area, allowing visitors
to obtain information regarding rituals performed at
each site. Several hotspots were created in Holy areas
where visitors could be directed to a Web address to
download prayers and rituals (recommended at that
particular place or time) by bringing their phone in
close proximity to each hotspot. The pilgrims were very
pleased with ease of obtaining guidance, preferring it
to the traditional alternative of a Mutawif (guide) providing instruction to the pilgrims regarding the rituals
performed and prayers recited at each given site. This
is particularly the case as lately the role of Mutawif has
shifted more towards providing logistics (e.g., food,
transportation, lodging, formal paperwork, etc.) rather
than spiritual guidance as it used to be before.

Pilgrim Prepaid Services

Helping Lost Pilgrims

Each group of pilgrims is assigned to a Hajj guide
(called a Mutawif) who is responsible for all services during the trip, including accommodation, meals,
transportation, etc., from the group's arrival until their
departure. Currently, a plastic wristband with unified
printed details is used for access to these services.
These wristbands are prone to fraud and are difficult to
verify, particularly given that all members of the group

Volunteers or officers equipped with NFC-enabled
phones can retrieve a lost pilgrim's camp location from
his phone or tag and guide him to his camp. Several
volunteers were given programmed phones for retrieval
of stored addresses in the pilgrims' phones. A touch to
the pilgrim's phone displayed the camp address of the
pilgrim and guiding him to his camp proved to be vastly
easier than reading the plastic wristband or talking to

IEEE TEchnology and SocIETy MagazInE

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MARCH 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2015