Does your mountain use RF?

[ski diva]

RF is Radio frequency, and it's used to automatically read your lift pass as you go through the gate. My home mountain (Okemo) doesn't have it in place. They still use the old eye-ball technique -- which is far less annoying (and probably less effective) than the scanners they use at some areas, where they use hand held gun scanners to read your pass every blasted time you go for the lift (I hate that). Still, RF seems more common in the west than it is in the east.

Does your mountain use RF?

 

[Kiragirl]

Killington started to use RF to scan but it was causing delays; not sure what they're doing this year.

 

[Robyn]

Killington started to use RF to scan but it was causing delays; not sure what they're doing this year.

Can you expand on this? What problems were they seeing? What system did they go to instead?

 

[Shannon D]

Vail just implemented it this year. It will be interesting to see how it goes. You will still be scanned by a gun, but you won't have to take your pass out of your pocket.

My Aspen pass has it as well, but they've had it in place for several years now.

 

[Kiragirl]

It seemed that the scanners were not picking up the barcodes on the passes, not sure why...so the scan-people kept trying to re-scan as the lines got longer, then finally would say, oh, just go ahead. They had to reach over people to get close enough to scan cards, even if you extended the card pull-string, which also caused a blockage in the line. Could have been due to distance or reflectiveness of the plastic on the cards.

 

[Christy]

My home mountain-Stevens Pass-will be scanning passes this year for the first time. It sounded like such a good idea so I hate to hear what you guys are saying! People will also be able to buy cards just for daily lift tickets, which you can recharge online and so not have to stand in a ticket line, and we'll be using a scanning "Advantage" card which gives us $10 off each weekend ticket. it's linked to our credit card so we don't have to go up to the ticket counter, which is up a hill away from the lifts.

I guess I will have to see if ours are like Vails or if they need to get close to them to scan, which sounds problematic.

 

[Robyn]

It seemed that the scanners were not picking up the barcodes on the passes, not sure why...so the scan-people kept trying to re-scan as the lines got longer, then finally would say, oh, just go ahead. They had to reach over people to get close enough to scan cards, even if you extended the card pull-string, which also caused a blockage in the line. Could have been due to distance or reflectiveness of the plastic on the cards.

Okay, so that's actually not RF. That is a barcode scanner which is different. We've had barcode here for years which isn't problematic but not having to even pull out the card (so they won't even see it) is nice.

 

[Kiragirl]

oh, DOH! I get it now. No, K-Mart does not have RF.

 

[astridhj]

In Norway we have it everywhere. The only annoying thing is that there are three different systems in use. So I have always a couple of these cards in my pocket. Several mountains have now opened for refilling the card on internet, which let you out of lining up for lift cards in the mornings. If I buy a season pass for one mountain, I need to buy another card and fill this one up if I want to go skiing on another mountain, hence all the ski pass cards I have in my pocket. Or when I forget to bring it with me...

But it is great. I like this system as it is more efficient and since the card is in my pocket the whole time I do not need to worry about loosing the card when I ski or go swimming in the snow... Just remember to close my pockets...

 

[MaineSkiLady]

I don't think anywhere in the east has rf. Woe be unto the technologically-challenged east..... We are, however, this season, going back to manual scanning at all Boyne-owned resorts, which wasn't used last season -- and apparently that fact was abused. Unless the pass scanners and queue leaders get truly organized, it's going to be a mess....again...not to mention that the manual scanners don't read through clear pass pocket protectors....the availability of which was one of the main benefits of the 3 jackets I own....

We also use 1950's home heating technology in northern New England. Just a step above coal, folks.....
Don't ask me why. I'm not from here.

 

[altagirl]

Alta went to it last year and it works WAY better than Snowbird's barcode scanner system. We were worried but I didn't see many problems at all. The lines moved quickly, and the only problems were early season there were a few cards that weren't working right and had to get replaced. Other than that and the occasional person who put it in a pocket with their cell phone or something causing interference, it worked well. And they had 6 sensor stalls to go through to get on 4 chairs at the main lift, so even if one got blocked, you could get around it in another line.

It was actually better than expected. A few years ago was the best - lifties would recognize people with passes and you didn't get hassled. A couple years they started cracking down and you'd have to show the same person your pass and have them scrutinize it 20 times a day (with you saying hi and calling them by their first name every time). It was seriously annoying - I mean, did I go and get a fake season pass in between runs? What are you looking for?

So to be honest, I really prefer the scanners than a grumpy person who makes you pull your pass out so they can look at it closely every run. If we could go back to the old way where it was laid back - that would be great, but I don't see it happening.

 

[num]

Not at my hill, though it's no surprise. We still need to take our passes in and get a lift ticket each day.

 

[abc]

Mmmm...barcode reader aren't RF, except when they send signals back to the base.

When I heard RF, I think hands-free lift pass. The kind they use all over the Alps. Kind of like the subway (DC Metro ?) turnstile. You go up to the sensor. The sensor reads you pass (still in your pocket), the turnstile turns. You're in! None of that grabing pass out of pocket business...

Sometimes, the US can be such a technology backwater! :(

 

[altagirl]

Mmmm...barcode reader aren't RF, except when they send signals back to the base.

When I heard RF, I think hands-free lift pass. The kind they use all over the Alps. Kind of like the subway (DC Metro ?) turnstile. You go up to the sensor. The sensor reads you pass (still in your pocket), the turnstile turns. You're in! None of that grabing pass out of pocket business...

Sometimes, the US can be such a technology backwater! :(

Exactly - that's what they have now at Alta and Solitude and a number of other places. You just leave your pass in a pocket and it opens the turnstile automatically.

 

[abc]

Exactly - that's what they have now at Alta and Solitude and a number of other places. You just leave your pass in a pocket and it opens the turnstile automatically.

Even better, at the end of the day, you type your pass number into the resort website and they tell you which lift you've taken and how many times. Add up the vertical of the lifts, spit out your total vert skied in the day!

 

[LilaBear]

Oh, I hope they have that on the new RF Epic pass for Summit County. I was excited to try it out yesterday, but at ABasin they don't have the RF, so they were scanning barcodes - at which point I learned that having your pass in a supercool carrier with a plastic window is not so cool. By the 10th time I think we'd worked out that it's the reflections that block it, so if you create shadow on the pass the scanner will pick it up eventually.
I really am looking forward to having the RF to reduce hassle. I remember when they were adding the RF ski pass functionality to Swatch Watches for use in Europe which seemed an excellent way to make sure you always wore your pass. It didn't catch on unfortunately.

 

[altagirl]

Oh, I hope they have that on the new RF Epic pass for Summit County. I was excited to try it out yesterday, but at ABasin they don't have the RF, so they were scanning barcodes - at which point I learned that having your pass in a supercool carrier with a plastic window is not so cool. By the 10th time I think we'd worked out that it's the reflections that block it, so if you create shadow on the pass the scanner will pick it up eventually.
I really am looking forward to having the RF to reduce hassle. I remember when they were adding the RF ski pass functionality to Swatch Watches for use in Europe which seemed an excellent way to make sure you always wore your pass. It didn't catch on unfortunately.

My husband bought me one of those Swatch watches when we were living in Europe as my first Christmas present when we were dating.

 

[Shannon D]

Oh, I hope they have that on the new RF Epic pass for Summit County. I was excited to try it out yesterday, but at ABasin they don't have the RF, so they were scanning barcodes - at which point I learned that having your pass in a supercool carrier with a plastic window is not so cool. QUOTE]

All 4 of the Vail mountains have RF this year (not sure about Heavenly). It won't be tunstyles like AG mentioned or like they have at Aspen, but you won't have to take your pass out. We had testing at Keystone a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't heard anything about how it went. I have my fingers crossed that all goes as expected...

 

[Robyn]

I think what LB meant was the tracking on the website which would be cool but I've heard nothing about it.

 

[Severine]

A couple years they started cracking down and you'd have to show the same person your pass and have them scrutinize it 20 times a day (with you saying hi and calling them by their first name every time). It was seriously annoying - I mean, did I go and get a fake season pass in between runs? What are you looking for?

Having worked in Loss Prevention as a scanner last winter, I can tell you that it's not just to spot fakes/expired passes. The mountain uses the data obtained from the scans (at least at the hill where I worked) to determine things like how busy the hill is at different times of day/week, if it's cost-effective to have all the lifts running, how much use they're getting out of passes, etc. There's a lot of other data involved, hence why we were required to scan every ticket, every time. If it got really busy, we were to do what we could to keep things moving... but primarily, we were to scan every person, every time.

And yes, I caught a lot of flak for just doing my job. Teenagers were the worst.

To answer the question, no, my home hill does not have RF. But I did have quite a few people suggest it last year. I imagine it would be too expensive to implement at such a small area.