Active Access Card and non-blocking Access Gates

Innosuisse project in collaboration with HE-Arc and e-liberty

Project description

In over 150 ski resorts in the Alpine area of Switzerland, the risk of people get lost is an unfortunate fact. Moreover, since 1936, the avalanche fatality average rate is 25. [ref: WLS, Switzerland]. People completely buried in avalanches are most likely to be rescued alive within 15 minutes. As a result, it is crucial to invent a way to rescue or find them as fast as possible in the most accurate way.

With the advent of IoTdevices, novel technological approaches can provide a wide range of possibilities to merge various technologies. E-liberty and InnoSuisse in collaboration with HE-Arc and EPFL, are running a project to conveniently give access to the clients in ski resorts. The purposed system has the aim to eliminate the blocking gates at the resorts and combine this technology with Image processing to provide an overview of all gates as accurate and fast as possible.

The proposed electronic card can track the skiers in the resorts in case of emergencies forced by unforeseen climate change such as heavy snow or avalanches. Also, the card is capable of conveniently giving access to the skiers without being blocked in queues. These two key features along with the capabilities of micropayments can provide ease of use for the skiers.