 Poster: A snowHead
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We were in Val Cenis last week. Problem with the lift pass. We recharged online ok but it didn't work at the lifts. First time we've had this issue. The lifty claimed the "pass is full" but as it is just an RFID and the information is stored in their computers I don't understand how this can be.
It took 40 minutes to sort out which is poor.
Anyone understand the problem? They use a skidata system.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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What does "the pass is full" mean?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Fiche le camp
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| holidayloverxx wrote: |
| What does "the pass is full" mean? |
for them it meant I'd used it too much and filled it full of tickets.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| pam w wrote: |
| Fiche le camp |
merci Tintin
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Sounds like BS to me.
We had a problem couple of years back when we loaded an extra day (because of the samediski offer in La Plagne) and my daughters pass intermittently got rejected. Lifties couldn't work out why but would let us through after checking on the system. In the end one of them wrote a paper note to carry around to save waiting for a check. Right PITA.
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| Layne wrote: |
Sounds like BS to me.
We had a problem couple of years back when we loaded an extra day (because of the samediski offer in La Plagne) and my daughters pass intermittently got rejected. Lifties couldn't work out why but would let us through after checking on the system. In the end one of them wrote a paper note to carry around to save waiting for a check. Right PITA. |
I've emailed skidata for comment but AFAIKS the card is an RFID chip, why would it need memory?
I can see room for confusion. At my local resort I can buy 2 hour "undated" passes and get a discount for 5 passes and I can buy 4 hour and 1 day "dated" passes. How does the system know which to use when I pass the gates for the first time?
Back to Termignon - the people at the LP office didn't seem to have any way of checking our passes as valid. The gate recognized them but rejected them. At the LP office they needed my physical receipt to issue new day passes - they couldnt' see the order in their system.
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| Quote: |
I've emailed skidata for comment but AFAIKS the card is an RFID chip, why would it need memory?
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The database record it connects too will.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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At a guess, the lift gates are not doing a live query against a central data system, as that could be very error prone in remote areas. Instead, the gates will have downloaded a list of all valid passes for the area for that day, and new sales are pushed to the gates in near real time. intermittent problems would indicate that the gate failed to receive the update, maybe because the connectivity is via the phone network and signal is weak, or the update process failed.
@davidof, an online recharge requires the ticket details to be pushed to the lift company, so maybe that failed and they had no record of the ticket number being valid for their area. Once they verified the purchase with the online system, they probably added it manually.
The pass is indeed just a simple RFID chip - when queried, it returns at least a serial number (and probably no more). That number is then verified against the list of valid passes. Skiline allows you to scan your pass into the app now using an iPhone or Android device with NFC capabilities, so this is pretty generic and simple stuff.
It may also be that ski areas can "claim" a serial number, e.g. a 6-day or season pass for your local resort may be locked in the system to prevent that serial number being duplicated and used elsewhere concurrently. If that area has not flushed the lock when the pass expired, re-using the card in a new resort would not work.
There are probably also anti-fraud mechanisms to ensure that you couldn't clone the card and then hand out 20 of them to your mates. If the card is used at a gate, and then 30 seconds later is used at lift which is 10 minutes away, that could/should/would trigger a lock on the card.
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@ousekjarr, Thank you for that useful information. I wondered how they worked and especially the anti cloning measures in place. I guessed that it must just work on a central database system but couldn't see how it could download my picture on to the lifties monitor so quickly. Of course uploading all valid passes at the start of the day is the obvious way to do it, then updating as the day progresses.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| davidof wrote: |
| I've emailed skidata for comment but AFAIKS the card is an RFID chip, why would it need memory? |
As ousekjarr says there will be minimal information.
| davidof wrote: |
| I can see room for confusion. At my local resort I can buy 2 hour "undated" passes and get a discount for 5 passes and I can buy 4 hour and 1 day "dated" passes. How does the system know which to use when I pass the gates for the first time? |
If there are two or more potential paid uses I presume the software will have some logic to decide which to activate. Could be something sophisticated deciding which is higher value for instance (and therefore more beneficial for the customer) or something very simple (date of loading).
| davidof wrote: |
| Back to Termignon - the people at the LP office didn't seem to have any way of checking our passes as valid. The gate recognized them but rejected them. At the LP office they needed my physical receipt to issue new day passes - they couldnt' see the order in their system. |
If they can't see the order that does rather suggest there was a failure at load time. Should still be something in a log somewhere showing the error but they'd maybe need an order number or something to check. Did you have a physical receipt? Were you actually billed or did you pay cash?
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| davidof wrote: |
...
I can see room for confusion. At my local resort I can buy 2 hour "undated" passes and get a discount for 5 passes and I can buy 4 hour and 1 day "dated" passes. How does the system know which to use when I pass the gates for the first time?... |
If you are going through a gate with 5 or 6 (so far) unused passes in your pocket, then clearly you might have an issue!  Hopefully the system will only activate one of them, and when you get to the next lift it will continue with the card already in use rather than activating a second one. But it might be random which one is used first.
I would get one of those card protector wallets that stop RFID signals, and put all the 'future use' ones in it.
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@johnE, According to the SkiData website, their system offers "Maximum fraud prevention through photo and size compare", so it is also likely that where resorts have invested in gates with cameras or separate camera coverage, the system is providing real-time comparison between either the photo used for an extended validity pass (usually 10+ days) and the gate image, or possibly between the first image captured of a pass holder and the latest. The image they provide at https://www.skidata.com/hubfs/Skidata/Website/Global/Solutions/Mountain%20Destinations/summit-logic-management-center-810x580.png demonstrates some of this.
If I was designing such a system, the anti-fraud measures would be extensive, and tunable. Fraud probably represents a very low percentage of visitors, but the lift companies will still be keen to eradicate it especially in cases like unauthorised pass sharing (e.g. partners who alternate childcare), cloning, and use of child tickets by adults. The lift gates already flag up child pass use in most places, but in reality I think the lift operators are primarily there to run the lift machinery and not to police the pass usage. Centralised oversight is more likely, and of course the anti-fraud measures are only really needed on the primary access lifts because all of the others require you to successfully pass those first.
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You know it makes sense.
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| Quote: |
How does the system know which to use when I pass the gates for the first time?
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Might just debit the lot. I had some "points passes" in Les Saisies, for the use of occasional visitors just doing a run or two, or heading up the mountain for lunch, and we always had to make sure that they had only one pass on them, or wrapped the other in a Faraday bag (i.e. bit of old bacofoil).
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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@pam w, @ecureuil, I thought @davidof was referring to multiple passes being loaded onto a single keycard, rather than multiple passes being loaded onto multiple keycards and all being carried at the same time, but I might be wrong!
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Poster: A snowHead
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| Quote: |
thought @davidof was referring to multiple passes being loaded onto a single keycard
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Oh! That didn't occur to me;  I'm a bit behind the times with smart passes.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@denfinella, that is what I thought too.
Once we left a second card in the same jacket pocket by mistake and just got refused. Putting it somewhere on the right side or in rucksack resolved it.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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All the issues that can, and seemingly frequently do, occur with the use of modern electronic passes, makes me feel rather nostalgic for the old paper passes on an elastic string! 
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| ousekjarr wrote: |
| At a guess, the lift gates are not doing a live query against a central data system, as that could be very error prone in remote areas... |
Actually I think they must be. I've recharged PDS lift passes online a number of times and you just turn up at a lift and beep straight through as normal, it's not like you need to go to the lift pass office and have them reprograme the card or anything. And that first pass through the gate is as quick as any other - if they were doing something special to update the card on first use it would need to be slower, going through a whole read/write/validation read cycle, and you need some way to resolve write failures too. As such the I can't see how the card can be holding more than a UUID.
There's huge power lines running to every chair so no reason they don't also run data cables, and even with a full resort the amount of data to store all active UUIDs is tiny so rather than a live check there's probably a nightly push for online top-ups then on demand pushes for lift pass office sales (we added a full PDS area day to Morzine-Les Gets 6 day passes at the Super-Morzine lift pass office last week and all passes worked at the gondola gate by the time we'd put our passes away and walked the 10 steps from there to the gondola).
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| Layne wrote: |
@denfinella, that is what I thought too.
Once we left a second card in the same jacket pocket by mistake and just got refused. Putting it somewhere on the right side or in rucksack resolved it. |
Yep, any card clash will confuse the system. Helped a teen girl (so permitted not to know better) who had her pass and bank card in the same pocket. Just laughed at my well-skied friend (so should know better) who moaned about his pass not working so he had to take it out for it to work and was adamant it was only his PDS pass in the pass pocket...till he took it out at the 4th lift and lastt year's Icon pass fell out
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| Layne wrote: |
| Did you have a physical receipt? Were you actually billed or did you pay cash? |
Luckily I had a physical receipt and a bank debit for the money. There was another issue with someone else while I was there but I didn't hear the details of what went wrong.
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So maybe after the money was taken the purchase bombed out.
Only logical explanation I can think of right now.
My missus is always asking if I have proof of payment if we've done it on line. She's the nervous kind... but to be fair sometimes that due diligence is useful!
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| Layne wrote: |
So maybe after the money was taken the purchase bombed out.
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I'm going to ask Termignon by email too but don't have time this afternoon.
I got confirmation by email from them so if something went wrong it was on the backend on their side. It was the 40 minutes to sort it out that was a bit annoying tbh.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| Mjit wrote: |
| ousekjarr wrote: |
| At a guess, the lift gates are not doing a live query against a central data system, as that could be very error prone in remote areas... |
Actually I think they must be. I've recharged PDS lift passes online a number of times and you just turn up at a lift and beep straight through as normal, it's not like you need to go to the lift pass office and have them reprograme the card or anything. And that first pass through the gate is as quick as any other - if they were doing something special to update the card on first use it would need to be slower, going through a whole read/write/validation read cycle, and you need some way to resolve write failures too. As such the I can't see how the card can be holding more than a UUID.
There's huge power lines running to every chair so no reason they don't also run data cables, and even with a full resort the amount of data to store all active UUIDs is tiny so rather than a live check there's probably a nightly push for online top-ups then on demand pushes for lift pass office sales (we added a full PDS area day to Morzine-Les Gets 6 day passes at the Super-Morzine lift pass office last week and all passes worked at the gondola gate by the time we'd put our passes away and walked the 10 steps from there to the gondola). |
? The pass has an ID. All the gate does is get the ID from the card, and then look that up in a table of valid card IDs. Whether that data table is cached on the gate itself, or on a controller in the lift equipment control room, or is held in a central server and queried live is important, both for performance reasons and for reliability. Typically this sort of system is designed to not rely on any remote systems - links can be down, servers can fail, and so on, and that would very quickly lead to huge queues at some or all lifts on the mountain.
When you buy a pass at a ticket window and then immediately walk through the gate, that works because the gate is likely connected to the same local controller as the sales terminal. By the time you get to another gate, maybe 5 minutes later, the data for that pass has been communicated to a central system and then propagated out to all lifts in the pass area. By "central" system, I mean initially one which is central to the ski pass area. There's also then one or more central systems which gets data from multiple resorts, and which is used by systems like Skiline. I suspect that SkiData take all data from all lift companies by default.
Comms links are not as simple as power links - they are point to point, so a fibre optic cable running along the power line then has to be connected either into the public Internet, or into a private network which connects all of the lift locations back to a central server room. That's expensive, and technically vulnerable - backhaul cables have to run across town on poles or in ducts, usually via the local telephone exchange(s), and for ski resorts which straddle a mountain range that could mean runs of 40-50 miles. At some point, one of those links will fail, and in a large ski area that probably happens once or twice per month throughout the season. You can't leave people waiting for the link to come back up before they can get onto a lift, especially where that lift is the only way out of a remote valley. Some lifts will use microwave links or 3G/4G mobile data either instead of or in addition to fibre links, though most radio-based links are degraded by weather.
That's why I think everything is cached locally on the gate or at the lift level. Plus a query against a central database which could be slow due to load or latency due to physical distance is not ideal - the gate opens immediately on scanning, not 0.5 to 2 seconds later, so either there is no remote query, or the remote server is significantly scaled to cope with the 200-400 queries per second in a midsized resort while also processing analytics data on where people are, returning photos, and providing stats to the operators. Data from each lift is likely pushed to the central server every 30-300 seconds, and in return the server sends any new pass IDs which have been added to the validity list plus any which should be suspended due to suspected misuse. A daily full sync is likely only a few MBs for the pass IDs, a few 10s of GBs for low-res photos of every pass holder in the resort if those are captured at the gates.
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