Toyko’s Narita International Airport Corporation (NAA) has released a new mobile app to guide passengers seamlessly through its terminals.

NAA claims the airport is the first in Japan to utilise ‘precise indoor navigation from any location to a boarding gate or other destination’.

NariNavi enables travellers to track their current location using a smartphone to lead them efficiently to the boarding gate, restaurants or shops.

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This is achieved through the use of Geomagnetic and Bluetooth BLE beacons situated throughout the airport and a sensor in the smartphone that picks up radio waves, which combine to fix the user’s current position inside the terminals where GPS systems may not typically function.

The technology boasts regular 2D mapping in addition to 2.5D mapping to allow passengers to view facilities on more than one floor at a time.

Search facilities are designed to blend seamlessly with the Narita Airport website, with the platform available in five languages (Japanese, English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Korean).

Users will also be able to take advantage of the ‘My Flight’ function, which displays time or gate changes to flights.

The app is compatible with iPhone (iOS 10.0 and later) and Android (7.0 and later) and is available to download for free at the App Store and Google Play.

A separate web version of NariNavi is also being released and can be used without downloading the app.

As a result of the launch, NAA says its existing NTR_Airport Navi and Narita Concierge NariCo apps will be retired as of 28 September.