Gloucestershire’s Royal Agricultural University is upgrading and replacing its mechanical key operated locks with RFID electronic access control from SALTO Systems.
Jim Caola, Sales Manager of Guardian Security South West, the local SALTO certificated partner, says: “The former mechanical lock installation within the university was not providing the level of protection or security information reporting required to manage the access movement of the students. To prevent this a more robust product was required, one which would not only offer a greater degree of physical protection but also provide a full complement of modern access control benefits including smart card operation, audit trail information, flexible calendars, auto locking and unlocking and so on.”
As an increasing number of female students are choosing to study at the university, electronic locking was found to appeal to the students and their parents as it is perceived to be safer and more secure than other forms of security.
SALTO provides access control to universities including Oxford, Cambridge and Princeton. SALTO’s XS4 platform fitted is a single system that allows the university to integrate staff and student physical security needs through networked stand-alone locks and on-line wall readers to provide real-time access control across campus.
This has been retro-fitted into buildings, replacing the outdated mechanical keyed system, as well as installed into new properties, providing an audit trail. The upgrade is being carried out on a rolling project basis with all properties being fitted with SALTO XS4 wall readers and electronic escutcheons in a stainless steel finish.
The first phase consisted of two accommodation blocks fitting two online doors controlled by WRM9000 series wall readers at ‘hot spot’ main entranceways to control perimeter security, 20 offline bedroom doors and four offline office doors. The second phase saw the main building, conference rooms and services areas protected.
The third phase is seeing all residential accommodation – 350 bedrooms across campus – secured with SALTO. Wall readers have been fitted to all main entrance doors with the internal keyed doors being upgraded on a rolling basis. Corridor doors have timed entrance/exit times, auto locking at pre-determined times. The newest building – West Lodge – has 58 bedrooms secured with the XS4 solution as are the main car park barriers.
The campus-wide system uses SALTO’s patented data-on-card SVN (SALTO Virtual Network) which can control an unlimited number of users and doors in a single system.
The handle sets read, receive and write information via Mifare cards as students enter and leave the accommodation buildings and since most access related information is kept encrypted on these cards, the perimeter door mounted wall readers are able to update and receive information from the cards at any time.
The makers say this provides 90 per cent of the benefits of a fully online access control system at the cost of a stand alone system, and as the students use their smart ID cards, they build up an on-card audit trails enabling RAU Estates management to track their movement through both the offline and online parts of the system as and when required. And if a card is lost or stolen it can be quickly deleted from the system.
Phil Wood, Facilities Manager at the Royal Agricultural University says: “We’re very impressed with the SALTO product. Its advanced system design gives an impressive degree of control over our student accommodation security. And as this same accommodation is also used by Conference delegates during the summer months when our normal students are not in residence, the flexibility of our new XS4 system endorses the fact that we can safely and securely look after these visitors too.”
About the university
Established in 1845 the Royal Agricultural University, president HRH Prince of Wales who lives at nearby Highgrove House, was the first agricultural school to be established in the English speaking world. As a university it offers over 40 programmes within its School of Agriculture, School of Business and School of Real Estate and Land Management covering agriculture, equine management, business and rural land and property management and is home to over 1000 students.
