3D face recognition for Regional Transportation District of Denver
(01/08/2007)

Regional Transportation District (RTD) of Denver is a public transportation district that provides transit services to 8 counties and 44 municipalities, with 85 million annual passenger trips aboard light rail, bus, access-a-Ride and call-n-Ride services. With 1300 buses, 16 miles of light rail and another 19 miles to be added within a year, the RTD’s Treasury handles millions of dollars in collected transit fees per year.

The Treasury is secured by a “man-trap” with a Lenel card access system opening doors into and out of the man-trap only for authorized Treasury personnel. A4Vision/Bioscript 3D biometric facial recognition systems add security to this infrastructure by verifying the ID card with the rightful owner ensuring that lost or stolen cards cannot be used by anyone other than the authorized party to whom a card has been issued.

There are typically three ways to authenticate or prove an identity to a system or a person.
* Something you have – like an ID card.
* Something you know - such as a PIN number.
* Something you are - a biometric such as facial features, fingerprints etc.

When two or more of these are used together for an identification decision it is called multi factor authentication. The RTD solution using dual factor, card plus biometric, offers a very secure solution with the convenience of 3D face recognition.

Don Young, RTD Treasury manager said, “We have Treasury’s security access thresholds set very high on A4Vision/Bioscript new Vision Access 3D Face Reader, because Treasury cannot tolerate any false accepts, yet we experience a 99 percent throughput rate. A4Vision/Bioscript readers are serving us with fast speeds and high accuracy.”

The installed solution utilizes the Vision Access 3D Face Reader and the 3Di application for enrolment and template distribution. The solution is integrated with RTD’s existing Lenel access control system. A4Vision products are built specifically to be quick and easy to integrate legacy systems simplifying deployment. The Vision Access 3D face reader interfaces with the Lenel hardware via Wiegand protocol for transmitting door open or lock signals and providing an audit trail in the Lenel host system. The 3Di (3D Integration) is an approved and certified Lenel Open Access application with features specifically designed for integration with legacy systems streamlining installation and ongoing administration.

The A4Vision system is working in verification mode (1:1) at RTD for dual factor authentication adding a higher level of security to this protected area. In verification mode the A4 system first accepts a proximity card and then will reference the 3D face template stored with that card number in a Database. The system then verifies that the person belongs to the card by matching the stored template to the person standing in front of the 3D Face reader. The A4 System performs this matching process in less than one second for very fast throughput.

A4Vision/Bioscript 3D facial recognition system is unique in that it can also perform identification (1: N) transactions with large databases for physical access control and time and attendance transactions. This provides for a very convenient control point while maintaining very secure matching levels.

A4Vision readers perform both verification and identification in real-time; accommodate variable angles, motion, and changing light conditions, including night; and provide a completely passive, non-invasive mode of identification with consistently high rates of accuracy. The Vision Access 3D Face Reader applied and assessed by RTD achieves sub-second processing speeds in biometric scanning.