Vail Picks New Line With UHF RFID-Powered Passes

If a ticket scanner has any doubts regarding whether the image matches that person (which can be difficult to determine when a customer is wearing a hat and goggles), he or she can ask a challenge question, such as "What is your birth date?" Although this approach of verifying season passes is expected to take no less time than the conventional method of physically inspecting them, it is intended to make the process more convenient for customers, who won't have to dig season passes out of pockets to show resort personnel.

EPC Gen 2 UHF tags' long read range (tens of feet, versus just a few inches with HF) is the main reason Vail opted for UHF. While HF tags would provide sufficient range to read season passes with a handheld interrogator, Vail has other applications in mind that would require a longer read range. The resort believes these applications will serve up a new level of visibility into the habits and interests of its customers that it can then use to improve its services. "UHF gives us more flexibility than HF," Urwiler says, because of its longer read range. "It gives us better visibility."

During last season's testing, Vail evaluated both the Intermec handheld readers and Intermec IF61 fixed-position readers, which can read tags from a greater distance than the handheld models. The reader antennas were placed above the loading point at various chairlifts positioned above the base lifts, with the intention of reading tag IDs worn by season pass holders as they board a chairlift. "At [Vail Mountain's] upper lifts, traditionally, people's tickets have not been checked at all," Urwiler says, "which means the ski areas do not know things such as a skier's last known location [after a pass is read at the base lifts], and this information could be useful for safety reasons."

Knowing the whereabouts of skiers and snowboarders higher on the mountains could also provide valuable insights for marketers and ski area planners, Urwiler says—not because the resorts want to track individual people, but because they could benefit by watching group movements. For example, it could prove useful to know the average age or gender of skiers and snowboarders riding a chairlift that accesses a given terrain park, or those that access the most challenging runs, as well as the numbers of people using those lifts throughout a particular day.

Still, Urwiler says, these perceived benefits are not yet strong enough for the company to move forward with installing overhead, fixed position readers at Vail Mountain's upper lifts. But the resort does plan to continue collecting tag data from the fixed-position readers already installed at Vail Mountain, and to deploy fixed-position interrogators at some base lifts to gauge their accuracy. "We already know that the handhelds are working," he explains, "so we'll use the tag data collected from the handhelds to audit the overhead, fixed-position readers, to make sure they aren't missing any tag reads."