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Hi-tech access control solution for civic centre

TeqTrader is supplying the access control solution - through one of its System Integrators, Cape Town-based MeyCom - to the 23-storey Cape Town Civic Centre, including the site's six-storey Podium Block development that will house the new UniCity Councillors.

The Cape Town Civic Centre

Meycom undertook the system integration in a joint venture with empowerment company, Kem Electrical, under the cooperative title, MeyKem.

TeqTrader's Nigel Versfeld reports that the Civic Centre project initially required the replacement of the building's existing data network infrastructure to accommodate the new system and any future expansions. This also meant recabling the entire building data backbone with fire retardant cable.

Once the data infrastructure was in place, Position Technology V-900 controllers were brought on-line to the server running Windows NT. This installation is the biggest application in the world for Canadian company, Position Technology, in terms of the number of PosiProx card readers installed.

Hands-free capability

Mike Job of the Cape Town City Council says one of the many advantages of the new system is its hands-free capability - instead of the old swipe card method, the PosiProx technology reads cards by proximity, whether attached to the user's belt or in a pocket. A video image of each cardholder will be displayed on a screen as the system reads the card, confirming that the card user is entitled to enter the building.

Centaur V3.0 Enterprise Edition was selected as the access control software, capable of catering for in excess of 512 card readers and 16 000 cardholders. This software is resident on the server with all data written to a SQL Server database. There are three Client PCs and one Server PC with a DigiBoard to allow for multiple Serial/Comm ports. The network between Server and Client is Ethernet TCP/IP incorporating one Ethernet repeater.

At project completion there will be in excess of 260 Position Technology card readers installed in the building, connected to 132 controllers. Cardholder count will be around 2800.

Versfeld says the Building Management System has three outputs into the Access Control System, each of which trigger Centaur to release various groups of doors in the event of fire or emergency evacuation condition.

For further details contact Frank Fowles, TeqTrader, on tel: (011) 403 3002; e-mail: frank.fowles@honeywell.com

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