Westminster Kingsway College has selected and installed a Salto Systems XS4 solution as part of a major security access control package at its five centres across the city.

One of the largest Colleges in London with centres in Kings Cross, Regent's Park, Soho and Victoria, with a separate administration centre in St James' Park, Westminster Kingsway College (Who awarded the contract to local approved Salto business partner, Beaver Access) offers a wide range of further, adult and higher education programmes to meet the needs and interests of a diverse range of students of all ages from sixteen years upwards.

"As the leading manufacturer of education tailored access control solutions, the XS4 system was an excellent choice for Westminster Kingsway College," comments David Wileman, Divisional Manager of Beaver Access, a division of Beaver Architectural Ironmongery Ltd.

"Working in consultation with the College we designed a highly secure and flexible 'keyless' access control system to meet all their needs. Management of students, staff and visitors was crucial and a 'one card solution' was to be the key application.

To achieve it a secure system was needed to control access via standard issue student and staff photo ID cards. The College, having already taken the decision to go with Mifare smart card technology, needed an access system that could provide them with everything that a hard wired system would deliver but in a mix of on line and off line stand alone wire free formats but at lower cost.

To accomplish this, a highly secure and flexible access control system has been designed. It uses 272 off line XS4 electronic locks, 2 panic bolts and 21 on line wall reader units all utilising the power of the Salto Virtual Network (SVN).

This allows the XS4 locks to read, receive and write information via the College's photo ID cards. Since most access related information is kept encrypted on these cards, the wall readers are able to update and receive information from the cards at any time. So not only is the system easy to use, but its outstanding functionality also provides 90% of the benefits of a fully on line access control system at the cost of a stand alone system.

The 'smart' ID cards build up 'on-card' audit trails through normal use giving the College complete control over access and enabling them to track the movement of staff, students and visitors through both the off line and on line parts of the system as required. This enables a complete access profile of each individual to be established and updated as necessary at the up date wall readers," David of Beaver continues.

Ian McDonald, Head of Information and Learning Technology, says "We chose Salto because it gives us so much more control over our campus security. It meets our dual aims of having the ability to run a totally keyless College and gives us maximum benefit from the technology by offering card integration such as cashless vending and photocopying capabilities on a standard issue ID card. Such built-in flexibility means we can get maximum value from our investment while providing a secure learning and working environment for all the students and staff."