Brivo’s ACS Panels Secure Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport

Eleven gates are controlled by the wireless control panels while two are controlled by IP-based controllers

The Situation

Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport, Colorado’s 4th busiest airport, has more than 180,000 take-offs and landings each year. The airport is home to a number of flight and helicopter schools and is the North American headquarters for Pilatus Business Aircraft. At any one time there are more than 2,300 airport and service-related personnel who need access to all or part of the airport complex.

The Challenge

In a post-9/11 world, airport security is paramount. While the visible security focus is often the passengers boarding the planes, there are a host of other critical security challenges in protecting the aircraft operating area, managing access to non-public parts of the airport, and controlling the many different employee groups and service providers to the myriad of businesses operating at the airport.

Rocky Mountain had originally installed an access control system that was cumbersome and highly inefficient: the wireless component did not work, so staff had to perform manual uploads and downloads at each of the different access points. Airport management sought an access control system upgrade that would be truly user-friendly, easy to maintain, and provide highly reliable wireless connectivity.

The Solution

The airport also sought two additional features which were incorporated into Brivo's ACS solution

Working with Protection One, Rocky Mountain chose to install Brivo ACS panels at all 13 airport gates. Eleven of the gates are controlled by the wireless control panels and two by IP-based controllers. The wireless component is critical to the system’s successful deployment because it kept the install price affordable, however there was no margin for error—it had to work. Miller commented, “Given our experience, I had my doubts about the wireless panels, but even with a really tough winter this year we haven’t had a single problem.”

In addition to daily access control operations, Miller and his staff perform a monthly audit to maintain tight control over the changing population of more than 2,300 badge holders. The airport also sought two additional features that were incorporated into the Brivo ACS solution: badging and 50 customer-definable fields. Due to the system’s hosted architecture, it was easy to take the airport’s specific requests and make them a reality in a short amount of time.

The Highlights

• The system has met the airport’s expectations in reducing man-hours and cutting overhead from an IT standpoint.

• Unlike Rocky Mountain’s previous system, staff can perform track and query operations in a timely manner. As Miller put it, “All this control and functionality is available right at our fingertips.”

• The critical wireless transmission component has functioned flawlessly, even in deep snow and fog conditions.

• The system is programmed to provide redundant alerts in the event of gate failures to both Miller and his staff, as well as the 24-hour agent-on-duty’s cell phone. Such event notifications, set up by a system administrator, may be delivered via email, cell phone, or pager.

• Remote administration of the entire system from any Web browser anytime, anywhere in the world.

• Brivo manages all IT maintenance of the system—eliminating the need for expensive IT resources or extensive technical expertise.

• Customer-specific demands for badging and extra definable fields were met in a full and timely manner.

• Total Cost of Ownership for a Brivo ACS is up to 50% less than traditional PC-based electronic access control systems.

• Brivo ACS offers a powerful combination of system choice, ease-of-use, control from anywhere, proven performance, and excellent economy— making it an excellent fit for airports.