Customer:

The Chicago Transit Authority, Chicago, Illinois, one of the largest public transportation systems in the United States.

Challenge:

The CTA wanted to replace and upgrade badges to serve as a photo ID and an electronic pass onto the system’s buses and trains. To do this they would need to capture and print photos of more than 12,000 employees and retirees scattered over a large geographic area. All new cards would contain a pre-encoded magnetic stripe.

Product:

Eltron P300C card printers were chosen for their ability to stand up to the task of printing large numbers of cards in adverse conditions. A small footprint and easy-loading, minimal maintenance makes field operation simple and efficient. The P300 prints sharp, readable bar codes, graphics and text in less than five seconds. Optional features include magnetic stripe and smart chip encoding.

All P Series on-demand plastic card printers offer sharp 300 dpi print resolution. Durable design features give you full color value or monochrome economy, and assure the portability necessary for on-demand personal identification card printing.

Use P300 printers to print:

• Membership cards
• Visitor and employee badges
• Identification and access control cards
• Electronic purse and smart cards
  
  

Result:

The CTA installed magnetic stripe card reading equipment in their rail terminals. They then sent out teams of employees to designated sites to capture photos of CTA employees and retirees. The images were sent back to the CTA headquarters via memory cards where the photo was matched with the employee record. That record was then stored on a network set up specifically to issue the cards.