Big Basin Marina Seeks Solutions Big Basin Marina in Channahon, Illinois operates on the DesPlaines River and it is located near many popular boating locales, both leisure and sporting. Needless to say, it has an extremely busy boat ramp, especially on the weekends.
During the busy weekend Elaine Disera can easily justify posting an employee to collect a one-time, in/out fee from boaters. However, weekdays are a different story and the low volume doesn't justify putting an employee at the ramp.
Therefore, users are more or less relegated to the honor system and are depended upon to seek out someone from the marina to make payment. Most conformed, but Elaine felt there were enough users "getting by" for her to seek a solution. Elaine called Total Parking Solutions, Inc.
Installing an access gate was obviously the way to go, but what mechanism can be used to collect the fees? Also, the ramp is more than sixty feet wide, just a bit long for a gate and too large for an unmanned access lane. Total Parking Solutions, Inc suggested Big Basin Marina install a Cale MP 104XL Pay and Display unit to work in conjunction with a Magnetic Auto-Control gate.
The boater would pay half of the usual fee at the machine, the gate would raise, the boater would drop their watercraft and the gate would lower after the boat trailer had safely cleared the detector loops. When it was time for the boater to leave, they would repeat the procedure paying the other half of the usual fee.
Annual permit holders were easily accommodated; they used the same access area except they were issued smart cards to use in the machine rather than cash. Since only one lane width was required when the machine was operating, they needed to address the issue of the ramp width. Solution – Four magnetic "Gorilla" bollard posts were installed on the side of the ramp that the gate did not cover during the time the machine is in operation.
Then, the posts are easily removed with a lever when the entire ramp is opened up for the busy weekend periods.