It seems as if RFID has finally becoming standard at North American ski resorts, even though the first installations started around 2006. That was just before the 2008 recession hit the ski industry hard.
Alta was one of the first to see the value of investing in RFID, with the gates first in use for the
2007-08 season.
Vail started testing in 2007 and their in-house RFID system, EpicMix, was rolled out for the 2008-09 system. Vail chose UHF instead of the more common HF because the scanners can read RFID cards from a greater distance. What evolved into EpicMix started at five Vail resorts: Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone, and Heavenly.
Aspen also made the decision to invest in RFID in time for the 2008-09 season.
The list of early adopters is a bit surprising. In addition to Alta, Stevens Pass, Tamarack, and Bachelor all had RFID gates before Vail and Aspen. Jiminy Peak, Wachusett, and Blue Hills in MA have had RFID for several years. Snowbird installed RFID gates at the base lifts in 2015. By the 2017-18 season the list in N. America included
Panorama.
By 2017, the technology was mature enough that the cost was not longer considered a barrier. At least not in comparison to snowmaking equipment according to an
April 2018 article in SnowOps.
Blue Hills uses turnstiles that cost $2000-4000 but worked out a lease arrangement with DAG Systems, which has it's U.S. office near Boston. Axess is the vendor used by Alta. Vail and Aspen use hardware from SKIDATA but handle software separately. Aspen expanded the reach of their RFID cards into retail using scanners from another company that were much cheaper than what SKIDATA had to offer.
https://snowopsmag.com/index.php/re...ss-north-america-are-going-rfid-and-loving-it
". . .
Axess has installed RFID systems in 50 countries, generally beginning the process in early spring to be ready for the next ski season. “The initial costs for such a program are comparatively low,” said Kopetzky. “The whole investment for a smaller resort is less than the cost of two complete snow guns on a tower (including shaft, control panel, etc.).”
Orchiston [director of business technology] said, “We did a lot of investigation into ROI prior to purchasing the system in June 2017. We took into account various factors – for example, labor savings and fraud elimination. The technology frees up staff to work on other lifts, interact more with the guests and better focus on fraud control. . . . "