The Beijing Subway Yanfang Line (BSYL) is the 19th urban railway transit line built and operated in Beijing, China. It is China’s first self-developed fully automatic subway line. BSYL, a public organization that provides mass transportation services via rail to the 1,100,000 people of FangShan District, is a system that runs 18 hours a day, seven days a week. The challenge BSYL faced was how to secure and track keys to restricted areas and revenue collecting equipment at locations offsite from the central command center.
The previous process of keeping keys in a bag in the safe, and using a paper log to sign keys in and out was cumbersome and ineffective. Additionally, requiring a supervisor to sign out keys and gain access to the safe was not feasible in many remote locations where equipment is stored. According to Mr. Lu, BSYL’s Senior Director of Operations and Administration, Division of Revenue Control, key loss and accountability were problems BSYL faced on a regular basis.
At BSYL, as more equipment was moved to remote storage facilities with no supervisor onsite, it became clear that new key management processes were necessary. BSYL’s overall technology objective was effective and secure key management to reduce key theft and loss as part of its overall effort to provide safe, reliable and effi cient transportation to its customers. After having seen Landwell’s i-keybox key management system in place in another division of the BSYL system, Mr. Lu looked to the company to help design a new key management system to meet this objective.
Working closely with BSYL’s Revenue Conrol Division team, Landwell developed a customized key access solution to meet the BSYL’s goals. This advanced key management system consists of a wall-mounted key control cabinet and a touchscreen industrial control computer, which can accurately lock each key and avoid messy key labels and unreliable manual logs. The i-keybox intelligent key management system helps prevent lost or stolen keys by only releasing assigned key to users with the proper authorization code and recording the access history of each key, including user, date, and time of remove/return.
When the key is removed abnormally or expired, the system will issue an alarm to remind the security personnel of the situation. The key management system software installed together provides managers with a wide range of key reports, authority management, remote control, and real-time alarms.
Landwell’s intelligent key management systems allow managers to get rid of the tedious work of key distribution and recovery, and focus on more more important business. Since implementing the i-keybox system, BSYL has strict accountability for keys throughout its operation. I-keybox electronically manages the key inventories of the entire Revenue Control Division of the transit system around the clock. Successfully maintaining a record of who used which keys and alerting management when keys are not returned on time. It has reduced the number of key replacements and eliminated the number of unauthorized access incidents.
According to Mr. Lu, “Landwell understood our initial troubles and continually suggests the best way to work through our needs as they evolve.”.
