Toronto Zoo, Canada's premier zoo, serves over 1.2 million visitors a year and operates a very busy parking operation with over 250,000 vehicles using its parking lots each year.
Toronto Zoo selected LEGIC's secure contactless smart cards in order to alleviate long parking lines as visitors attempt to enter the zoo. The reusable cards allow the zoo to audit the number of visitors and collect their parking fees when they exit the zoo, giving them the ability to park quickly and begin their day out.
Zoo members with prepaid parking passes, and visitors who are provided with contactless smart cards upon entrance, pay for parking at readers upon completion of their visit rather than at entry. At the end of each day, staff members retrieve the collected cards from the terminals for redistribution the following day. In addition to efficient trafficking, the cards are also highly waterproof - a key requirement as one of the most popular areas at the zoo is a water park.
Canadian Parking Equipment's Flex-18 barrier gates were installed at each of the zoo's four entry lanes in a free running mode. This permits quick entry for visitors while preventing unpaid exits from these lanes. Each admissions cashier is equipped with an off-line smart card validator that is used to dispense a quick validated plastic card to each parking vehicle.
ICA Chipkartensysteme GmbH & Co. KG, Germany, recommended LEGIC technology (through its distributor Canadian Parking Equipment) to the zoo as the best solution for its trafficking, payment and auditing requirements. The deployment of the new technology has eliminated wasteful disposable paper tickets, and offers a four-way read standard, a highly water resistant ticket medium, cost effective merchant validators, integrated lane intercoms and fast exit lane verification.
