Funtastic Traveling Shows is a traveling carnival that stages short-run events in northern California, Oregon, and Washington. Funtastic desired to replace its current system of using paper tickets with a more automated real-time solution.

Challenge:
Implement a wireless solution for a carnival that wishes to replace paper tickets and cash transactions with bar-coded cards. The cards needed to perform like a debit cards managing cash, ticket, and special transactions. The wireless solution is a challenging one since the carnival picks up and moves after a few days of being in one place. There is no way to perform site-surveys every time the carnival moves, so the use of smart placement of the wired and wireless access points and specialized antennas must provides coverage of the entire carnival.

Solution:
SolutionsOne and Eric Woods created a solution that uses SQL Server and AirLinc running on a dedicated Windows 2000 Server workstation serving up to 75 Symbol PDT6842s, five wireless laptops connected via a 2MB wireless backbone, and a customer service laptop wired to the server. The server has up to two access points wired to it via a hub, with up to two wireless access points strategically placed at the carnival.

There are four types of users on the system: ticket box, game/food, ride, and customer service. The first function any user executes is logging in. This identifies the user to the system, whether the user is a ticket box, a game, a food stand, a ride, or customer service. Also, every user has the ability to scan a card and see what current value is on it.

Processing begins at the ticket box. The operator, using a laptop wirelessly connected to the server, takes a bar-coded card, scans the ID, and then either keys in a dollar amount or selects a special value, depending upon what values are available and what the patron wants to purchase. A receipt then prints on an attached POS printer. The transaction is stored in the database. The operator can also reverse a transaction (if the patron changes his mind) and reprint a receipt.

At a game or food stand, the operator, using a portable data terminal wirelessly connected to the server, scans the card ID and enters the amount to debit from the card. If there is not enough value on the card to support the transaction, the operator is appropriately notified; otherwise, the card is debited the desired amount with the transaction being saved in the database. The game or food stand operator can also reverse a debit if the patron changes his mind.

At a ride, the operator, using a portable data terminal wirelessly connected to the server, scans the card ID and enters the number of riders (thus allowing one transaction to process multiple people going on the ride using one card). If there is not enough value on the card to support the transaction, the operator is appropriately notified; otherwise, the card is debited the desired amount with the transaction being saved in the database. Furthermore, the ride operator can execute a multi-card transaction, allowing a number of riders to go on the ride using multiple cards (thus allowing one transaction to process multiple people going on the ride using multiple cards). The ride operator can also reverse a debit if the patron changes his mind.

In the customer service trailer, the operator uses a laptop with a wired network connection to the server. This operator has access to all the functions available to the users described above. In addition, there are three new functions used extensively: the card trace report (which details the life of a card keyed by ID, showing all credits and debits to the card), card clearing (zeroing a card’s value and preparing it for re-use), and event maintenance and reporting.

Benefits:
There are many benefits resulting from the implementation of this system. The primary ones are reduced ticket theft and real-time event reporting and accounting (what revenue is being brought in now by rides and games). Secondary benefits include reduced administrative work (no tickets to count) at end-of-day and historical event reporting (what rides and games are bringing in the most revenue over time).